Wings of regret
by Envious sky
Summary: Do you know the pain of regrets? Collecting one after the other in your heart, torturing you and drowning you in a sea of your own misery? The hopelessness of not being able to do anything about it. Do you know what it feels like to be reduced to the broken angel on the floor, unable to fight against the pain. No longer able to shake off the monsters that cling to you.
1. Erina

**Just a quick thing I have to mention, I wrote the first five chapters before I got a beta, so they aren't as good as they could be. Plus I was stupid to start this when the main is 12 even though the important plot points are when she's 9 and 14, I don't know why I started from there, so the first chaps are me trying to explain things and putting something in between the gap. So I guess what I'm trying to say is don't judge this from the first couple chapters, I don't like them either.**

**(2,466 words) Well I rewrote this because I originally had four chapters of this story and they were completely shit. They couldn't even compare to the rest of the story, and I knew people wouldn't read something they found crap, because I do think people wouldn't believe me when I said the start sucked but the rest wasn't. So for the sake of a story that isn't actually total crap, I have rewritten it to something much better, heck even my writing in better in it than it was in the original.**

**No one has to make sense of Erina's dream, I just wanted it in there.**

**Hope you enjoy, I really do, this is my favourite that I'm writing.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned FFVII my pretty little Erina might actually exist, so we all know the answer to that question because none of you know who that is.**

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><p><strong><span>Wings of Regret chapter 1: Erina<span>**

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><p>Tired chocolate eyes fluttered open, flickering from the green liquid that touched them softy in a stinging embrace. The tube she was trapped in stunk of dirt and nature, most loved this smell as an escape from the disgusting stuffy air of the slums; but to her this smell represented a eery evil, and nothing made her feel more sick. The bruises she'd recieved only hours before now stung against the mako, even with all the green whenever her eyes dropped to them she could see they were visably redening. She was sore, tired and wanted nothing more but for this to end, escaping to the world of dreams did nothing for her to escape from her torture. This would continue for hours yet, and there was nothing she could do about it.<p>

For the man in the lab, whenever their gazes were focussed on her, it was not the fragile body of a twelve year old girl they saw, but a monster who deserved every minute of this pain. She was less than nothing to them; she was a specimen made for this use. She knew in a corner of her mind that was not true, this destiny was not for her, whether or not her mother had given the consent herself. A part of her in all honest wanted to laugh at all those with the negative views of her, because they were too blind to know that such insults better fit them. However ShinRa could think these men were smart was beyond her, she believed strongly that it had to mean that the rest of the company was as hard as it was to believe more idiotic than these monsters of so called men.

Her breathing was slow and sharp, the pain was unbareable after all the hours spent in the cramped space. She couldn't move an inch without the pain shooting up her limbs and assaulting shoulder that had already been damaged by the men that had attacked her just an hour before this began. Before she'd been forced kicking and screaming into the mako tank countless amounts of needles had been aserted into her arms, full of god know what. Brown marks had already appeared on each place where syringes had gone in, the already sore pain that would have been there anyway was turned into flames that made her have to clench her teeth so not to scream.

The main reason for this was currently standing directly in front of her, grinning that unnerving smug grin of his. He could scare the shit out of someone just by standing next to someone; part way because he was so hideous, part way because he emanated insanity and evil. She was well aware she was not the only one to think this way about this particular man, he had given himself quite the reputation.

Professor C. Hojo, leader of the ShinRa power corporation's science department, by far the worst of this lot of assholes. His face always showed a look of acomplishment, despite everyone around him knowing that he had never acomplished anything good in his life. He was an ulgly man, both inside and out. Glasses rested on the top of his nose, black hair tied up at the back. It was yet to start graying but at his age he didn't have long to go before it would. Going on appearance alone it was a disturbing thought he had actually had a wife once, but she usually kept in mind that the only reason he did was because she was bat fuck insane and had convinced herself that she loved him. That made it slightly better,but not by much.

She glared daggers at the man standing so close, but too far away for her small arms to strangle him. She had been awake for an hour, before yet again, tired lids screamed for rest and she lost the battle to keep away from the terrifying world of destruction and death that existed in her mind only for her own personal torture.

In her mind she was awoken by the sound of exlosions, opening her eyes she lifted herself up. She winced as her hands dug into shards of glass, twisting her hands she could see the blood dripping from each cut. She growled at that, she had enough pain, regardless that the pain she had in the waking world didn't exist here.

Snow and ash fell from the sky as the sun disappeared over the horizon. The twilight cast an eery orange glow on the setting her dream had decided to cast her in this time. she pulled herself off the ground slowly, feeling like if she were to move faster she would alert someone dangerous of her presence. Shiny black hair slipped from the sides of a tattered white ball gown. It was longer to a length past her hips and the fringe covered her left eye and some of her face. Behind the black strands hid a face of beauty, one that she would rather keep hidden. Her body was tall and slender, perfect , one any woman would long to have. She guessed this may be what she would look like when she was older, part of her wished that it wasn't, unlike many woman beauty was not something she wanted.

Stepping carefully around the area she observed it closely, watching out for life threatening predators. Her dreams had their ways, though she coudn't be harmed physically the pain her mind told her she had could be mentally damaging. She hated what she dreamt, it was never good, it consisted of nothing but bone chilling nightmares.

The loud cry of a child ripped her from her senses, she had the urge to help, but knew that it was futile in this world. If she ran to help the kid she would find a mongulated corpse and nothing more. As she walked she stepped on shattered bones that broke more under the weight of her bare feet and forced their sharp ends into her. It was a comfort to know the pain she felt wasn't real, it was her mind making it all up because even it hated her.

During the course of her torture she snuck past Feral dogs looking at her with hungrey eyes, soldiers shooting at innocents seeing clearly the bullets ripping through their flesh, and cities turned to rubble still smoking. It was sickening, every part of it, what was the point of these dreams? Did they have some kind of twisted meaning or was it her mind trying to find something fun to do?

They were running through a similar course, she was running away from the danger as best as possible. She couldn't stop all the harm from getting to her, it did one way or another, it was impossible not to in the situations she was putting herself in. Eventually she found herself stalking a long haired stranger, not like he was much of a stranger to her. He appeared in each and everyone of her dreams. No matter where she ended up he was always there, like a demonic guide with cold black eyes and his mattered brown locks that swayed in the wind. He was scary, but in a weird way she wanted to trust him, because she had no one else in this world that could offer any help.

This time when she found him he had a knife ripping in through a bulky mans chest moving up while still inside him all the way to his dark throat. She shivered, he either helped these poor people or became the biggest monster here and slaughted them. At the throat the brown haired man pulled the knife out of his victim and dropped the cadaver to the snowy ground, his arm dripping crimson blood. His steel eyes eyed the beauty watching him in curiousity, every dream was like meeting him again, he would have no recognision of seeing the lovely chocolate eyed girl ever before. He shugged off his slight curiousity in a second and turned away, looking for another helpless person to slaughter.

"Wait!" She couldn't let him leave, what if he knew the way out of here. She picked up the torn ends of her extravagant dress and ran for her life to catch up to him. she stormed past the bloody remains of the man who's life he had cut tragically short with little regard, she was numb to such misery, she had suffered too much in its hands.

His black eyes turned angry when she got too close, she backed away as fear gripped her. He found her so stupid; not like he was in knowledge it was no more than a twelve year old girl there, to him it she was a full fledged woman, one quivering in fear. But than she saw the reason for his cold stare, she had walked into danger, one she didn't notice until it was too late.

A monsterous wolf jumped at her, she felt its gigantic claws dig into her soft white flesh, wounds burned like flames. She was shoved into the ground, her head hit it hard and began ringing so much she couldn't see straight. But she felt the warm blood pouring from her arms, and the beating heart banging against her sore chest. The moster raised its paw up for the death strike, she braced for the painful impact, but none came.

She woke with a start, sweat dripping down her face and breathing erratic. Her arms felt unsteady and her vision was blurred as her head was ringing.

"Erina!" The voice of a little girl cut into her darkness. She looked aside to see the worried face of a big green eyed child.

"You kay?" She asked, honest worry was in her voice, one who could when it came to the one in front of her. She realised now she was on a bed, the experimentation must have ended hours ago, the tiny window at the top of the cell showed her the sight of a full moon.

"I'm okay, it was just a bad dream." She huffed, breathing was hurting her. The pain had drindled down from the hours ealier, but she could still feel the soreness. She ran a hand through short brown strands of the small girl clinging to the side of her bed.

"That good." She smiled brightly, her eyes lit up with relief.

The girl, Erina smiled back, a rare truthful one for that matter. This girl and her mother were such nice people, she hated ShinRa for what they did to these two. Currently they had been shoved into a small cell, it only had one bed and Erina was occupying it at current. The prision cells in the building were being overfilled with people at the moment, and for the last month these three had been forced into one together. They were to be in all honesty lucky that they were not stuck near the labs. The rest of ShinRa had kept in mind Hojo is a insane bastard, and allowed for certain specimens of his to be kept away from there in case of more bad things happening in their already horrid lives.

Erina, was one of said specimens, one that Hojo had large interests in. At the moment she was seen as a side project to him, to help him pass the time when a certain girl and her mother were not avaliable to him. But he did not get to experiment of females all that often, their bodies react differently than men, and how they do is something interesting he was very curious in finding out. She was drugged with a whole bunch of things, injected with random chemicals, and put into serious pain and torture just for the sake of his amusement. It was sickening how he viewed her, he wouldn't even call her by name, he couldn't see her as a person no matter what. She was born near ShinRa, but thanks to a certain someone they lost her for years, until a chance encounter bright her back into contact with the insanity that is Hojo. she had already had something done to her before she was born, even if he didn't do what he was currently doing to her she would have been different anyway. To him it was like 'if she's already not normal what's the harm in doing a little more?' She scoffed at the thought of a little, it was far from a little. it had gone on for five years and was running full steam ahead, it would continue for many years yet. The worst thing about it wa there was nothing no one could do to stop him, technically her mother had given her consent for her to be experimented on. It wasn't her that had been allowed to be in truth, it was the brother she was yet to meet, he was a half brother, but he was her twin. Because he could be, in every way she was forced to when Hojo had proved her connection to the woman he himself had known very well. In a corner of her mind she knew that she would never have wanted her daughter to be in this mess, even if she had denied her existence until she could no longer do such, even if she denied her own love for Erina's father, even though her mind was so destroyed; she would never have wanted this.

"Erina?" the child's voice again torn her away from her dejected thoughts, she gave a melancholy grin to the tiny five year old.

"Aerith stop worrying I'm fine." she took a firm grasp of her hand and holstered her up.

"Worry bout youself precious, a cold floor is no place for some one as young as you to sleep."

The little girl, Aerith moved her hair away from her friends face and snuggled close to her so they could keep as warm as they possible could. Erina wasn't afraid of sleeping anymore, in the small girl's company that world of destruction wouldn't dare return to hurt her some more.

They fell asleep on the small bed, with the smile of a mother beaming at them from the corner, before she herself slipped into the world of dreams.

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><p><strong>Yay done, now I'm going to go have my nightly cup of tea.<strong>

**Hope you enjoyed, honestly and truthfully do. And if you did (or didn't it doesn't matter) why not drop by and give me a nice likkle review?**

**Seriously (don't take me as desperate) I'm extremely self-negative and have kinda bad paranoia, so if you would like to contribute to me keeping my sanity, might be nice for you to actually do that instead of completely ignoring this note like you probably usually do.**

**Thanks for reading**


	2. Of visions and memories

**(5,893 words, bigger than my usual) This is a much lighter chapter, so will the next one but the fourth will go back to being dark. And here's the conversation in my head,**

**Serah: OMG, update, it's a christmas miracle!**

**Arianna: It's easter you moron, and who cares about an update no one reads this story.**

**Serah: what the hell are you talking about? it got 18 views, that's 18 people!**

**Arianna:That's no one!"**

**Serah: No it's 18, and please shut up you're making Tifa depressed,**

**Tifa (me): *dying***

**Arianna:Hua hua hua.**

**Serah: Bitch.**

**Yeah you just witnessed a conversation between my insanity (Serah) and Paranoia (Arianna) They do this constantly, it's pretty damn annoying.**

**Anyways, on with the chapter, hope you enjoy**

**Disclaimer: It is more likely that this is a historical event then me owning anything ffVII related.**

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><p><strong><span>Wings of regret chapter 2: Of visions and memories<span>**

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><p>A banging sound awoke erina from deep within a dream, half closed eyes moved to see the culprit. A man with dark brown hair with a large cowlick near his fringe stood grining at her from the other side of the door. Erina shut her eyes against the light from the torch he shown in her eyes,<p>

"Morning sunshine, the world says hello." He chuckled in an obnoixious tone.

Erina kept her eyes closed from the pain she could feel behind the lids, her entire head was killing her. It was a usual side effect from all the drugs, the only good thing about it was that it would mean the scientists would have to wait before administering anymore, the pain was her body showing it had had too much. Hojo wouldn't chance risking the life of his precious little specimen, it wasn't everyday he got one like her, there wasn't anyone else to replace her. Whether she was a side project or not she still held some importance, and for that reason only did they keep her alive.

"Go die girly," She remembered to reply to the man on the other side. He gave a disapointed look to her, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"Oh now you don't have to be so mean, I was thinking of pissing off the assholes for a day." He laughed this time, she could hear him softly hit his head against the bars, resting it there so he could keep his balance.

"Won't people be suspicious if they see you with a little girl?"

"Not overly, I look youger than I am and you look older, does that make up for it?" She took the shifting sound she made out to be him shrugging.

Ignoring the pain she lifted herself into a sitting position, glaring joke daggers at the older man. He was dressed in a crinkled up suit with his tie done up loosely. She could guess the turk wasn't even allowed here, but despite the rules he had come up and seen her anyway. He had reddish brown eyes that just had something cheeky about them. He was around 22, but still had the appearance of someone in their late teens.

"I'll give you icecream." He pleaded, the reply was a roll of her eyes,

"I'm not one for sweets, you know that, this is the fifth time you have used that as a bribe." She swung her legs over the side. She must have been alone in here for awhile now, she was surprised she didn't hear anything when the other two were taken out.

Erina stood up but fell back down as fast as she had stood, a hand went to her head to steady it, she had a major dizzy spin, so bad she hadn't been able to see. She rolled her shoulders trying to ease the soreness, this probably wasn't the best of days for her, but it wasn't often she got this chance. She stood back up keeping the hand on her head, it wasn't as bad this time, but she waited until the dizzyness subsided before she walked over to the man at the door.

He fiddled with a bunch of keys he had had stuffed in his pocket for the correct one,

"So how did you manage to get all those?" She asked with suspicion, tilting her face closer to the bars.

"Because the guard thinks you're adorable and Hojo's a stupid old bastard." He replied simply, finding the right key and putting it into the lock. Smiling as he heard it click and swung the door open.

"Really?" she still held the suspicion.

"Oh it's true, I just made the way he described Hojo less rude. Dont' want to go swearing my head off near a kid." He shugged again.

The small girl stepped around him to outside her cell,

"There is worse things you could do than say some words that are considered bad. At least those can't harm me."

"Whatever," He smirked, "To the stairs then?" He curt-sied as a joke then extended his arm to lead her out.

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><p>On the train Erina observed each person that got on and off, there wasn't much else she could do, the man by her side wasn't talking to her.<p>

His name, according to him was Yoshioka, but she was pretty sure that happened to be a traditional Wutanese girl's name. Apparently growing up he had always been called a girl, he had looked very much like one when he was younger and when he bacame a teenager his voice broke later than the usual male. He was very obviously a guy now though, but none the less from the time she had been told his old friends' inside joke she had called him 'girly' and wasn't intent on stopping.

What they were doing now wasn't something far off from the usual. He did this all the time, no one but the science department had a problem with it. Hojo was a nutcase, it was common knowledge, so why should he get his way all the time when no one liked him. So the result of this was that she was constantly let out of her cell where she would either run around the ShinRa building (there is fantastic places to hide in there) or go somewhere in Midgar. She never went in the slums, she wanted to but if she was with anyone they would always stop her, it was said to be too dangerous for her. But she didn't care listen to the words of snobs, what do they know. The main reason she didn't go in there was that she knew that people she used to know lived down there, and she didn't want any kind of reunion with them. It was blue demons' fault that shinRa had found her, it was the mistake of one of their members.

Blue demon was a group of idiots, nothing more to say. They came up with that name out of the blue, it had no meaning to it. She hadn't talked to them for two years now, she had made a point last time she had seen them that she didn't want to see their faces again.

Jessica was the first she had met , brown hair dyed badly red. A pair of headphones permantly around her neck. She was hypo and whenever she talked to her boyfriend she would use this old time kind of talk, it had been extremely annoying since the first time she had witnessed it.

Miku was the second along with Chalotte. Miku was from some noble family that lived in Wutai somewhere, she had had a fight with her dad and left. To help cut off her ties to them she changed her look, by cutting her hair to boys length and dying it a bright blue. She couldn't speak english for the life of her, her family had been against their members learning it. Charlotte wasn't as big as an idiot as the others, she had her sane moments. She was the type to laugh from other people's misery, mainly if she was the one to cause it.

Rhapsody, was afore mentioned boyfriend to Jessica. He was both the most insane and the most sane all at the same time. He didn't actually have a name thanks to all what occured before his birth. His mother was a turk that had had an affair with a rich man, but when his wife had found out she had gone balistic. She was forced to retire as a turk thanks to the fact of Rhapsody's father being an high ranking member of ShinRa. She was then made to return to her home country of Wutai. Her mind had been virtually obliterated in all that had happened to her, she never named her son. His father made it seem like he didn't exist and his life went a normal. Because his mother, Sakura's family was full blooded Wutanese, he was hidden from the public like he didn't exist. Her family had the tradition that it must be the mother to name the child, but she never did and in the end he never got one. So he named himself Rhapsody and everyone went along with it. Erina personally hated the name thanks to a certain boy she met in Banora years ago.

Getting her mind back on what was happening, she saw that her stop was still three stations away, so with not much else to do, she closed her eyes and let her rest. She just hoped to god it didn't land her back into her world of personal torture

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><p>It was not that world her mind fell into, but a memory of a time long lost.<p>

_"Erina?" A kind voice asked from behind the kitchen counter. It belonged to a woman in her mid thirties. This was Mari, the woman that had raised Erina from a baby to the time she left without a word. A part of her hated her for doing it, but a voice in her head had always said that Mari and her husband James had never really loved her, so what was the point in staying._

_A three year old child with lovely black hair tied in pigtails and clips keeping her fringe away from glowing chocolate eyes ran up to her with glee in her step. She smiled brightly at the woman she knew as her mum. She made no sound besides a quiet giggle, Mari watched her with her pretty pea green orbs. _

_"Are you going to talk to me today darling?" She questioned in a nice calming tone._

_The young Erina made no sound past all her giggles, which had increased from the question._

_"Can you at least tell me what you want for lunch?" She asked that now, maybe something like that would be enough for a reply._

_"Heheheheeh" She again made no sound beyond her childish laughter._

_Mari realeased a frustrated sigh, but made the attempt not to look angry in front of her daughter. She fumbled with bread that was placed to the side of her and began making a meal for the two of them. _

_"Fine then you can just have peanut butter with me." she handed her the second peanut butter sandwich she had prepared, "I'm not sorry if you don't like it. You could have told me what you wanted you know."_

_Erina took hold of the food with her mouth and dashed back to the corner stashed with toys. Mari watched her as she took a bite out of her own lunch, she did her best not to let her daughter's silence get to her. But sometimes all she wanted to hear was her voice._

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><p>Erina's head banged into the back of the seat with a loud thump as the train slowed. She moved herself foward quickly and rubbed the back, growling under her breath.<p>

"You don't take pain well," A man's voice disrupted her, she turned her face to the right to see Yoshioka grinning mischeiviously at her.

"Do not, I have a very high pain tolerance. I just get annoyed by the sensation of pain."

"Like I said you don't take pain well." He sniggered.

The girl moved to shove him but he stood up right as she was about to move her arm.

"Come on, it's our stop." He said with an all knowing smile. Leave it to a turk to be fully aware of her massive urge to knock him over. But she'd get him before the day was over, that was a promise.

She returned the smile before following in his lead and getting off the train.

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><p>They walked around for awhile before Yoshioka convinced her to go eat at his favourite icecream palor. For an adult he had one hell of a sweet tooth. After ordering they sat down on a seat outside and ate the sweets. Erina had ordered a coffee flavoured one and Yoshioka a bubblegum, she couldn't stand ice creams but the bitter taste made it standable.<p>

Yoshioka went right in but the girl ate barely anything, instead staring at the ground watching her feet sway from side to side. The man observed her dejected expression, he finished his food and wiped his face clean with his sleeve before asking any questions.

"You okay kid?"

She glanced up with little regard before looking back down acting like he hadn't said anything.

"Kid?"

"That's not my name!" Erina yelled at him when he tried to speak again.

"Well tell me your name then." He asked with a cold voice, she had ever mentioned it to him or had anyone else, despite knowing her for three years now.

"No, why should I?" The mood between them had soured fast. "I don't even know yours."

She held the sweet in her hands tighter, causing the cone to crack slightly.

"I'm a turk, it doesn't count. Can't I have at least something to call you by?" He asked hiding his anger from his voice.

"Ara." she stated it and said no more. The aura she gave out showed she didn't want the conversation to continue.

"Fine, 'Ara'. I know where you took that from keep in mind, you sure you wouldn't go for something else?" He asked in a venomous tone, she didn't reply.

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><p>Yoshioka dragged Erina along to other places around the plates, but the depressed pre-teen refused to enjoy any second of it. They did have to remember that if any one was to discover that the girl was gone they had the large chance of someone coming after them. It didn't matter whether she was needed or not, they just rathered for her to be in a place they knew.<p>

The sun was setting by the time he'd taken her into a partially abandoned old club. No one was bothered by a twelve year old being in there, it was the third time she had been after all. It wasn't like some drunk person would try to hurt her, no one got that drunk here. And if that did happen he probably wouldn't manage to hurt her, despite her small size she could stand her ground in a fight, all the experiments did have their advantages, for one she was seriously fast.

He sat her down at a table, where like at the ice cream palor she sat with her head facing down and dangling her legs. She wasn't the type to enjoy things, not when she had to fear someone coming after her.

"Damn kid, can't you live a little?" Yoshioka asked with a beer in his hand.

All he recieved was a glare, "How?" she spat.

Yoshioka's face went a little blank, but he was searching for an answer to her meanly asked question behind the expression that showed,

"Like, by trying to?" He wasn't smart enough to give a proper answer, not like he was a moron but questions given by Erina were hard to answer.

"Yeahhh..." She drawled, "How the crap am I Suposed to do that considering the circumstances of my life?" Her voice was like venom.

She rested her head on the shaky table, she made sure the aura she cast out made it clear she wasn't in the mood to talk. There was a silence around them for sometime, only disrupted by then chatter of the club's other occupants and the sound of a waitress cleaning up the empty tables for any other possible customers. But Yoshioka couldn't keep his mouth shut for very long, he was too much of a chatter box.

"How 'bout some Karaoke?" He asked with a fake pout.

Erina stared at him with a raised eyebrow, not falling for his puppy dog eyes at all, he was a turk faking was second nature to him.

"Are you five?"

"Nonsense, kiddies can't sing for the life of them. Karaoke is for older idiots." He pouted some more but it was replaced by a grin in the end.

"Way to compliment yourself." She rolled her eyes, fiddling with table cloth. "You're not very smart."

But yoshioka ignored it and stood up anyway, with the same obnoixious grin.

"Thanks for the compliment, now I'm going to go be an idiot and sing in front of a bunch'a drunks."

Erina watched him with a smirk as he went and stood up on the small stage, going down the list of songs on the Karaoke machine to find any he knew. She couldn't resist rolling her eyes when he yelled out the fact that there was Wutanese songs on there, he found their traditional language highly amusing. Good part was he couldn't pronounce it for the life of him so there was a very unlikely chance of him singing any of those songs. In the end he chose one he knew quite well, some song called boulevard of broken dreams.

He picked up the microphone and began immediately, he got the attention of everyone in the room, not for how loud he was singing, but because he was brilliant. That had taken her by surprise, she usually expected to hear crap people sing when it came to karaoke. Friends had taken her to plenty of karaoke bars before she had gotten tangled up in ShinRa's mess, no one they had heard had the ability to sing. So hearing one was amazing, not like she was overly interested, singing talent wasn't anything impressive

At the end he had given her the biggest grin ever and ran back to her seat, not for one second did she trust him in this moment.

"And now it's your turn," He forced the remote into her hand.

"Go die." Was her reply, she scowled at him with angry eyes.

"I'm not giving up." He grinned with the most stubborn look he could muster. To add to his fight he pulled the girl up and tugged her over to the stage. Some people laughed at him for the struggle she put up, despite the fact that he certainly wasn't weak she wasn't someone you'd want to fight against. Most people didn't realise this since to them it was a grown man struggling against a little girl, not like they would ever know the truths about her.

In the end Yoshioka won the battle, he got the girl on the stage but she stayed silent for quite some time, and all the begging he did was doing nothing to her stubborness, she continued with her silence.

"Come on, I'll help you hide if you do it?" He begged, his pleading had gathered some attention because to most this wouldn't make any sense.

"I can't hide forever, they always find me in the end. Besides the kiddie likes to have some company." She reffered to the little girl she was currently sharing a cell with.

"You let youself go through torture because you want to keep a kid some company?" He whispered letting the idea of it pass through his lips weighing whether it be insane or perfectly logical. "Look she has her mum isn't that enough?"

"Girly," She started, "She's five."

"So, at least she has someone, hell you're only twelve yourself."

"Yes but she is sweet,kind and five and I'm a bitch. end of conversation" She folded her arms and gave him a cold look.

"But.."

"End of conversation."

"Jesus kid."

"End of conversation." She pronounced it menacingly and Yoshioka finally backed away from her look of purer venom

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><p>The two sat at the side of the stage, all other customers had already left and the workers were packing up, but thanks to the waitress currently cleaning the tables while wearing rollar blades, they had been allowed to stay for a undecided amount of time. Yoshioka had won in the end to get Erina to sing, he was just that good when it came to begging. she didn't know many songs so she had sung one of the few she did know thanks to it being a popular one around the town she had grown up in. It was called safe and sound, she'd actually scared some people with how haunting she had sounded when she sung each lyric. But it was intended to be haunting, so she had done a good job in all honesty.<p>

"You know for a kid you have a damn good voice." The brown haired man said from besides her when he finished his cup of beer. He set it down on the stages edge and grinned, getting confused over another glare directed at him.

"Can you stop calling me a kid now?" She lowered her gaze to her dangling feet, the fact that they couldn't touch the bottom annoyed her greatly.

"But you are a kid."

"I don't want to be. People always look down on them because they think they're so much smarter, but how do they know that if they don't even know me?"

Yoshioka let out a huge sigh, "Give it a few more years, they won't always think it. Might want to be happy that you look older than what you are, it means you won't have to wait as long. God I still am." He ran a hand though his messy brown hair, trying to pin down the clowlick that was permanantely stuck there. He did look much younger than what he was, it made sense that he was still looked down on for his youth.

"You're twenty-two, it's not as bad." She said it but her mouth was contradicting her thoughts.

"I look like I'm sixteen or something, I get that crap too."

"I doubt it would ever be as bad as what I get. Some assholes even give it too me for the opposite reason."

Yoshioka winced at that comment, he knew that there were men in ShinRa that could quite possibly over look the fact of her only being twelve. In appearance she was in between fourteen to fifthteen, the only thing that signiled she wasn't was her height. He'd do his best to make sure no asshole would ever touch her like that, sure she could be a bitch at the best and worst of times, but the girl didn't deserve any of the treatment she was getting; anybody that dared make it worse would be getting one hell of an asswhooping from him.

He layed his back down on the stage, he could see through the corner of his eye Erina looking back down at him.

"Why won't you tell me your name?" He said it without the annoyed tone the rest of his words had included, hoping maybe that he would at least get a reply.

"Why won't you tell me yours?" She smirked, resting herself besides him.

"I thought we already cleared that up."

she didn't reply, her mind was too focussed on the slivers of a memory coming into her head.

* * *

><p><em>"Oi! snakey!" A loud voice boomed at her.<em>

_Dazed eyes looked up to him the the middle of the truck, she was yet to fully wake up from the sleep that had been rudely interupted by the truck hitting a hole._

_"What is it?" The black haired seven year old asked._

_"I have a genius idea." The light brown haired boy known as Rhapsody laughed, leaning his back against the side more. His laugh was joined in by the red head besides him known as Jessica._

_"No you don't." Erina replied before attempting to return to sleep._

_"Aww, how can you say that!" He pouted childishly._

_"Iie iie iie" An accented voice called from the back in a sing song tone, one belonging to Miku who jokingly agreed with the younger girl._

_"English." The drowsly voice of Charlotte cut in, before returning to her sleep after giving her hyper active friend the one millionth reminder._

_"Screw you." It was her turn to pout._

_Erina rolled her eyes at the antics of the people around her, they were so stupid, but they were her chance of leaving her town, so she had to take it._

_"Fine, what is your idea?" She relented to the idea of the only boy there, for he had been making obnoixous puppy dog whines the entire time since he'd last spoke._

_"That every time you introduce yourself to a person you give them a different name." He exclaimed cheefully._

_Everyone went silent for a second. Everyone was waiting for the youngest to give a reply, while her thoughts were plain obvious._

_"You are the biggest moron I have ever met." She spat._

_"Thanks for the complement."_

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><p>By now the club was virtually deserted, the only other person Erina knew for certain was here was the woman that had previously been skating around the place cleaning. she was currently in a back room fixing up the place for tommorow.<p>

"Yoshioka?" Erina's voice whispered just loud enough for him to hear.

They had been silent since she refused to give him a proper answer over what her name was. It had been a comfortable silence so no one cared to disrupt it, he was taken by surprise that it was Erina that did it after so long.

"Yeah?" He tilted his head to her.

"Why did you join ShinRa?"

He thought about it for awhile, he was more than aware of her negative views about them. He didn't want an answer that could upset her in anyway.

"I've had so many relatives that had been apart of it, I felt like if I didn't join I would be letting my family down otherwise. Seriously, my uncle did some pretty great stuff, sure he was apart of the science department but he wasn't a douchebag like the rest of them. His experiments didn't put others in harm, he was a good man. I only wished that I could have met him."

"Is he dead?" Erina tilted her face to him this time.

"Yeah, an experiment went wrong. It wasn't one of his, but a close colleages, I think they blamed themselves for it."

Erina shivered at how familiar this sounded to her, but she refused to let him become suspicious about her knowing a thing at all about it. for now.

"Do you have any other relatives that were a turk?"

"Hmm, yeah, one at least. He joined when he was eighteen because that was the legal age back then. The training for a turk is suposed to last three years on average, but he did it in two and was better than some ten years his senior. Hearing about that was what inspired me to become a turk, but I know I will never be as good as him."

Erina eyed him for a second, he had the ghost of a smile on his lips. It showed that he was not entirely happy over what he did happen to be talking about, meaning most likely he was keeping facts back.

"How old is he?" She sat up, but he stayed there.

"Old enough to be your dad." He laughed.

She felt another shiver jerk her as he said that.

"Please don't word it that way."

She turned her face away, hidden her expression from his confused one. She was keeping it a secret how much she had recognised the description.

A jolt of pain hit her head, ripping her away from her thoughts, she snapped her eyes closed as a scene moved from behind her eyes

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><p><em>It was dark, a man stood in a destroyed old apartment room. She couldn't see who he was, he hid his face behind stray locks of hair. The lights were off and cold wind blew in through open windows, purple curtains swaying with each new breath of air that slipped in. It made for a haunting scene, with the man's mood one of purer despair. Erina wanted to shut her eyes and ran away, something was not right with the scene openly playing out behind closed lids.<em>

_It was some time before she realised he was speaking, to himself of course in this perpetual loneliness._

_"Why does he have her? I've always been there, for how long was she slipping from my grasp." He breathed deep and heavy, a chill past down her spine._

_"Oh god I love her! Why isn't she mine! The only thing good in my life and now she's too far away to grasp anymore!" A sob racked his body, his breathing turned more erratic and he dug his head into his hands._

_"Everything, everything...why does it leave me wanting more? wishing I had more? Why do I lose it when I need it most?..." His red eyes looked to the side, focussing on an object to his left._

_"Is it my fault that my life is a mess? Is there something wrong with me?" His head raised slowly from his open a shaky hand he picked up the metal object, too obscurried in shadow to make out what it was._

_"Don't blame yourself...Regardless if we had met I would have done this anyway. I have nothing and it's all my fault. I didn't mean it when I said if you would be mine I'd keep living, because I knew you already belonged to another, and you loved them too much to leave him."_

_A cry ripped itself from his lungs and he almost dropped what he was holding, sobs racked his body hard and he barely let out a breath inbetween each. After an eternity of tears later, he regained his composer, and looked straight foward, eyes red with tears falling down still, but he was a statue of confidence._

_"Goodbye Princess."_

_BANG_

* * *

><p>Erina jumped at the sound, even when knowing she never really heard it. It wasn't a memory, it wasn't her mind playing games with her, it was something that really happened or maybe but far more unlikely something that was yet to be.<p>

"Ara?" Yoshioka's voice broke through her thoughts. She was unused to the name he had addressed her by, so it took the second time he said it before she turned back.

"Wha..." She had barely moved her head to the side when the man jumped, but she quickly realised why from his comment,

"Shit! your eyes they're...they're"

"Green." She finished for him. "It's not the first time."

He eyed her uncomfortably for a moment, before reaching into his pocket and digging out a pair of sunglasses.

"here, sure it's a normal colour but those eyes aren't normal."

She took them from him and placed them on her head, they hung loosely but stayed on fine.

"Well aware, it earned me the name snakey by old friends of mine."

"I can see why.." He looked down and bit his lip, she knew what he was thinking so made it quick to correct him.

"Don't worry about it's been happening since I was a baby."

"But..It's still their fault isn't it?"

"Yeah." She sighed, ShinRa had already ruined her life before she'd even had one.

"I hate ShinRa..."

Futher conversation was cut short by the waitress returning to the main room, she gave them a smile and asked,

"Hey Yoshi, meaning to ask, but whose the kid?" She inquired curiously.

Yoshioka opened his mouth to speak but Erina beat him to it,

"Evangelynn Yue."

The boy next to her looked plain dumbfounded and the woman in front was repeating her apparent last name.

"Yue..Yue..Yue...You Wutanese or somethin'?"

Erina watched her for one second before deciding to play along with it,

"Yeah my dad is, mum's Midgar born and raised."

"hmm, cool. Bye then." She waved still looking half confused.

Yoshioka waited until she was out of earshot before he made his complaint.

"Great, you just tricked my sister into believing you're Wutanese and gave her a fake name. What the hell?" He raised his arms into the air.

"I gave you a fake name, so?" She stood up to leave.

He rolled his eyes at her smug grin, the atmosphere around them had lifted fast. It was nice this way.

"Do you have a single point in doing this?"

She shrugged, "Just giving people a different name each time I introduce myself."

"And the Wutanese part?"

"Well it's a quater true, on my dad's side to be exact."

He gave her a stupid look, "Retard." He ruffled her hair ruffly.

She gave him a glare.

* * *

><p><strong>And done, this is my easter present to you all since it's not possible to me to give you a chocolate through a computer. This is the first time I've posted an update on a holiday, fanfiction made me forget what day it was all day. fun.<strong>

**I was right that no one would give me a review, despite me making it clear it might help me keep sane. I'm not all desperate and all that shit, I have paranoia and it's getting worse. I'm pretty self-negative so to me getting a review is a stranger telling me I'm actually good at something, I can't take complements well because Arianna tells me that the people that do are lying their head off but it's still nice to get one. **

**I don't care if it is concrit, it's more than welcome it will make Ari-chan happy and she will shut up for awhile, just**

**If you care enough drop by and give me a review, it will always be much appreciated.**

**Thanks for reading.**


	3. Lucky charm

**(2,036 words) Sorry for any mistakes I'm tired, enjoy whoever is reading this, it's not much but at least it's something**

**Disclaimer: I'm barely older than this game, no way in hell is it even possible for me to own this, exactly why this story is on fanfiction**

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><p><strong>Wings of regret chapter 3: Lucky charm<strong>

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><p>Awakened by pain in her left soulder, Erina flipped herself around and opened her eyes. she realised then that she was sleeping on a bunch of boxes, she remembered that she had gone to sleep in the club's supply closet. It had been extremely late when she had finally started to get tired, but thanks to that waitress on skates who was apparently Yoshioka's big sister, she had been allowed to stay.<p>

She didn't ask questions in the end why the young girl had no where to go. She could have a guess considering she was hanging out with a turk. She didn't have a proper place she could give the girl to stay so she resorted to one of the back rooms, but she promised she would go to work early and beat anyone else there in case of the possible confusion their presense there could cause. Yoshioka was sleeping on the floor near her with his head resting on a bag of some kind. It was early so she couldn't see very well at the moment, her surroundings were far too covered in darkness.

Having not much else to do, she layed her head back down and made the attempt to continue sleeping. Her body was far from being in the mood for it, she had visited her evil little world again. This time she was stuck in a zombie apocalypse where the place she just so happened to be in was a burning skyscraper. In fact she had woken up like up like usual at the moment she was suposed to die in the dream, which for this one was the moment she fell out of the damn building. The man that was always there had pushed her out, he was the good guy in this dream in all honesty, he had pushed her out so she wouldn't be mauled to death by rabid zombies.

She rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position on the row of boxes. But that would be extremely hard for there was no such thing as a comfortable position considering boxes are not devices made for sleeping on. she wondered if the waitress would get in trouble for letting her sleep on a bunch of them.

Just as she rolled again she felt something fall from her pocket. She reached down to pick it up before the other one occupying the room noticed it. But she realised she failed when the his drowsy voiced asked,

"And you say you hate being called a kid." He shiggered quietly.

"Shut up," Erina spat, "I'm not childish, it's my lucky charm." She gazed down at the small angel doll she held in her hand. She had been given it by her adoptive mother Mari when she was very young, it was one the only thing she had to that connected her back to that time when she had lived with the woman and her husband. Originally it had been a normal doll, but one time when Rhapsody had gotten bored he had sewn angel wings to it and used dyes to make her hair blonde and her purple dress to white.

"Yeah right." Yoshioka laughed. "How can a doll be a lucky charm?"

"Anything can be a lucky charm you bastard! It's not limited to being a certain object." She growled.

"I seriously doubt it's lucky considering the circumstances of your life." He stopped himself there once he realised he had gone too far.

Erina glared down at him, having half her face covered in shadows only cast more effect to the agitated expression she held.

"Fuck you."

She stood up suddenly, looked around for an object, finding what appeared to be broken glass, she picked it up holding it tighter than she should have an chucked it at the turk. He brought his arms up to cover his face and the glass broke against his left arm. He hissed at the searing pain, biting his lip hard. He decided immediately to calm down the enraged pre-teen but when he got up he saw she was no longer in front of him and figured it out a second too late as he heard the door slam shut to his right.

"Damn girl," He complained before lifting himself up, more concentrating on going after her than to cheak what condition his arm was in. But taking into account the warmness he felt, he could guess there was plenty of blood there.

Yoshioka followed after her, swinging the door open and frightening the woman standing in front, she flinched and rolled away a foot.

"Damn Yoshi, don't do that. What's wrong with the kid?"

"Long story, now I have to go get her before she gets into any trouble. Oh and piece of advice stop wearing skates to work." He started after Erina again.

"I don't think it'll work, she's a little rocket that one." She called from behind him and with speed did she follow up with, "What the crap happened to your arm!"

She didn't get a reply, he was already out of earshot to hear a word of it.

She sighed loudly, "Damn boy, could at least give your sister an answer once in a while."

* * *

><p>Erina didn't care where she was going, all she knew was that she was in a bad mood and she didn't want to see that turks face right now. He reminded her of Rhapsody sometimes, to a sickening degree. It was why he could annoy her far easier than others could, and he already had a short temper.<p>

She dodged between a young couple and a bunch of kids a few years younger than her. She scared plenty as she ran, she was so unnaturally fast. The sun had risen by now, she was sure she had but a good distance between her and Yoshioka

She didn't give a shit over the looks she was getting, she was too used to it by now. Plenty of times she had run through Midgar. Running from either someone she was plainly pissed off at or a ShinRa employee coming to take her back. She feared the second one over all, they wouldn't be gentle by any means and the destination they lead her to was anything but nice. The one good thing was the little girl and her mother that she shared a cell with, even if the mother got sick a lot. She was half sad what those two were going through, the daughter didn't know life beyond the walls of that building. But the two were company for her life in that stinking hell house. She felt bad that she got so much more freedom than them, even if it never last forever and always would she end up back there at least she had it.

Her distracted mind came close to making her slam into the walls of some small night club, she had barely noticed where she had been running. This was a bad district, not to mention you couldn't trust in the slightest what may be hiding in the many sidestreets and alleyways. This place had a bad reputation for a reason.

She rubbed her shoulders, they were flaming at the moment, she felt sore all over. The drugs were still having a bad time running through her body. All the running she'd just done had set the flickering pain into a full blown fire. She pushed her palm against her chest, each breath made her feel like she had been stabbed, it was hell. She had pushed herself too far, she just hadn't noticed it because of the constant motion. Her hands moved back loose hair strands stuck to her forehead with sweat.

She didn't hear the sound of footsteps until it was too late.

Large arms wrapped around her and lifted her up, she tried to scream but the sound was muffled by a hand moving up and covering her mouth.

"Shush you stupid kid, that asshole is going to give me money for this."

She shruggled against his grasp, her feet dangled just above the ground, she kicked and kicked, but her feet couldn't manage anything but scrapping the concrete. She forced her arms out trying to loosen his grasp but even if she was strong the man's giant size put her at a massive disadvantage. He put her down for a second but she was unready for it so before she could make an escape attempt he had already put her hands in a pair of handcuffs. She tugged at the grip her hands were in his but it didn nothing to help.

The man pulled a mobile phone out of his pocket. He dialed up a number and waited for an answer, when he did a dirty smirk appeared on his face and he announced,

"Yes sir, 1181 is secure." He shut it and pulled her along.

She tried to move in the opposite direction but her escape attempts weren't working, so she did the only thing she could think of that could assist her was fall off her feet so he would have to pull a dead weight. It wouldn't help her escape but it would prolong the time before he could return her to the building, considering what he had called her she knew where he was taking her. But her attempt at prolonging time turned useless as well because after he edmitted an angry sigh he took a step towards her and picked her up like she didn't weigh a thing.

* * *

><p>Yoshioka searched around the area, but couldn't see her anywhere. He knew this wouldn't work, she was a human rocket. His eyes surveyed the area once more, again of course he came up with nothing. He shook his head, he had the feeling she had been caught again, and his feelings were usually right. Yoshioka gave up and sat down on the nearest bench. Even if she wasn't as fast as she was and was a normal child, it would still be damn hard to find her. This crowd was massive, but through everything he did spot one thing, something familiar.<p>

He raised himself from the bench and pushed through the crowd, apologising to the old woman he knocked over but continued at th same pace. He ended up in a spot slightly less crowded, where a man a couple years younger than him was holding a doll. He noticed that it was the same that Erina had had ealier.

"Excuse me?" He took a step closer, being startled by the mans bright eyes, they looked out of place with his messy light brown hair.

"Yeah?" He flipped the doll with a grin, blue eyes with a mischeivous glint.

"That um...belongs to a friend of mine, could I have it back?"

He turned the angel doll over and stared at its badly stitched on wings. "Friend huh? Glad to see Savina still has them." He handed the doll over to the turk and began walking off.

'Savina?' yoshioka wondered why he had used that name, but got over his confusion to ask the question to the stranger, "Do you know her?"

The stranger looked back for a second without giving a proper answer he said before disappearing into the crowd, "Tell her the idiot says hi."

'Tell her the idiot says hi?' Another thought to confuse him. But he made himself get over it, he needed to know if she was back in the building or still running around the plate, something must have made her drop the doll. It seemed to be something special to her.

* * *

><p><strong>reviews will be nice, virtual chocolate to anyone that becomes the first reviewer<strong>


	4. dig youself deeper

**(2,720 words) Violence! yay, this was fun to write as evil as it is. This is by far the most evil thing I ever wrote. Sorry Eri-chan!**

**Disclaimer: If I owned this there would be non stop tradegy, and VII already has shit loads, well I would make it worse!**

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><p><strong>Wings of regret chapter 4: Dig yourself deeper<strong>

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><p>Erina was pushed to the ground with force. A tall man stood above her watching her with dark threatning eyes.<p>

Another man had returned her to the ShinRa building fifteen minutes earlier. She was being returned to her cell but she had decided against being nice about it. Resulting in her kicking one of the lab assistants in the leg, he was unprepared and had tripped ramming into the man behind him. The guard had been there but knowing the reputation the two men had given themselves already, he didn't want to be near them in what was about to happen.

Both were relatively new to ShinRa, but thanks to the specimen with a bad pesonality, their reputation went down the drains almost immediately. Brooke was a man whose body type better fit someone in the military than a scientist, the lab coat didn't fit his muscular image in the slightest. Danic wasn't muscular like his colleage, but he was a giant when it came to height. His 205cm's made you almost not notice how fragile his thin body really looked.

"I think you need another reminder of your place little girl." Brooke's deep voice chuckled, grinning at his taller friend. It wasn't above these two to hurt a child, they couldn't care less even if she was a girl. The fact that she was a specimen made her less than nothing to them, they had every right at put her in her place in their own way.

"I'd say you're right buddy." Danic sniggered behind him in the shadows of the dark hallway. The cells were in the next room, the wall on both sides of the room were sound proof, so no one could ever hear her scream.

Brooke took a step towards Erina's tiny body, who was holding her winded stomach. He picked her up by her collar hashly and shoved her back against the wall, a gargling sound left her throat as her dangling feet in a panic scraped at the ground.

"So are you going to kick my friend next time? Or are you going to be smart and keep those midgit sticks to yourself?" He inquired darkly.

The girl in his arms scowled at him before bewilding him with a laugh, despite her situation.

"Smart huh, well that's something you'll never know." She declared with the same derranged laugh.

Brooke made a sound reminesant of an injured wolf, before delivering a hard right hook to Erina's face. She landed with a thump on the steel ground, coffing out spit as she struggled for breath as the landing had made her winded worse. Each breath made her feel like no air had entered. Her hands curled into balls as one clasped her chest.

"You calling me dumb you mongrel!" Brooke screamed, hitting her again with a booted foot to her chest.

Erina layed there without answering, continuing her attempts to stay breathing. Each second made her fell more dizzy as air rushed in too fast for her body to take.

"Answer him you bitch." Danic's angry scream came from the back.

She still didn't make a reply, instead her hand felt her chest softly, feeling a drop of blood touch her finger from where Brooke had hit her. She couldn't see it but already a mark was forming where he'd punched her.

"Look who's talking." she wheezed.

"Fuck you." Danic came up and picked her up. He let her dangle there, tired chocolate eyes met his infuriated black ones. His height made it impossible for her feet to touch one bit of the ground below her. Her top stretched painfully close to her injured chest, making the wound turn into flames of pain. Her arms pulled at her collar too tight around her neck in the man's grip, air having trouble reaching her lungs. Her body stung so much it was bringing tears to her eyes.

"Aw, the likkle girl is crying, didn't think you were such a crybaby, crybaby." He laughed loudly, his friend smirking evily besides him.

"Why don't you beg little girl, beg for me to put you down?" Brooke was the one to laugh at that. Danic's smile only widerned.

"Come on, just some begging is all we want to hear."

Erina could feel herself losing consciousness, her lungs were burning for the air that wouldn't come. But she'd rather die than give these men what they wanted. Her life was nothing at all, not even to her.

"Fuck..You." She breathed out as a whisper.

Danic's eyes opened wide in shock , before changing his expression into purer hatred.

"Oh you really think you're so much don't you? You're so much better than us huh!" He screamed in her ears and flung her at the closest wall.

She tiny body hit it hard and fell to the floor, neither bothered to check if she was concious or not, Danic had fallen too deep into a rage to care.

"You're nothing but a stupid experiment! A side project for god's sake! No one cares about you!" He stopped to breathe "Hell I'd say your parents mustn't if you're living this life! You got that you stupid bitch!"

when he ended his rant things went deathly quiet, Brooke was silent and Danic was waiting for a reply to his anger. The thought that the girl was unconscious was proven wrong when after a full minute of silence she spluttered up spit and blood and began taking loud ragged breaths. Danic's dark eyes watched her intensely, waiting for another excuse to abuse her small body.

Her breathing sounded like hisses and her lungs wouldn't stop flaming from the lack of air they'd recieved before. Her sight was disorientated from her head hitting the wall so hard, her head rung and her shoulders ached. Her chest stung and the feeling she had in her stomach made her feel like she was about to puke. Eyes twitched in the direction of the two men looking down at her with disgust, she looked back with the same expression.

"Who are you to say that? You don't even know me... My mother is an insane bitch but I know that she would never have wanted this live for me." Her eyes were like flames, "And even though my dad doesn't know about my existence, I know that if he did he'd want it even less then her. What can swine like you say huh?"

Danic released a loud cry and forced her back to her feet before throwing her back down to the ground a couple feet away.

"Oh you little bitch, dig youself deeper" He placed himself on top of her.

His left hand took a tight grip on her wrist while the other steadied himself in his position. His eyes glowed with corrupt thoughts. He leaned in closer, empty hand moving up and gripping the fabric covering her chest, ignoring the sight of her dried blood.

"Do you want to make me wish you were never born?" He smiled the most twistered smile. And Erina got his meaning.

Her heart stopped for a second before she began struggling to get out from under him, but all this did was make him tighten his grips on her.

"Oh no you don't, you deserve every second of this." He growled. His hand loosened from the ripped fambric but lowered back down to properly touch the small bump he could feel under it. the girl under him whimpered and bit her lip, a tear of fear ran down her face at the prospect of what was about to happen. He sneered at her responce and held it harder, the nail of his finger dug into her flesh.

"Fuck off.." She cried as tears of pain this time fell down. "Fuck off."

"Kid's got a good mouth on her hasn't she?" He laughed as he asked his friend that was looking on, doing nothing to stop the lunatic.

Danic leaned closer, and brushed his lips against hers,

"Don't worry kiddo, I ain't going to hurt you...much." He chuckled again but was stopped halfway through by the side of a gun rammed into his face. His was forced off Erina harshly, his nail dragged against her chest ripping into the soft skin. She bit her lip as the pain appeared, her tear stained eyes looked up to see Yoshioka standing by her side, gun foccused at the man that had almost raped her.

"Scram now you monster." He said sternly, his eyes glinting with a confidence that scared her. He wouldn't think twice of pulling the trigger.

Danic was helped up by Brooke, both gave dirty looks to the young turk, they both towered above him and had an experience over him thanks to their ages. But in this situation did he have the upper hand thanks to the weapon he held right at them.

"Why do you want to help her? She's nothing.." Brooke started but Yoshioka cut him off,

"You're nothing, now as I said, scram!" His tone could cut through steel, it was to these man but their stupidity made them refuse to show their fear.

Danic spat at the ground in front of his foot and pushed Brooke aside, breaking his grasp on his hand.

"Whatever, do what you want with her. I couldn't care less."

Both men took their leave then, it was the unsaid truth that the only reason they did was the fear that the turk would have ended their lives then and there.

Yoshioka waited until he was sure the two scientists were gone before he went to give asisstence to Erina. He walked over to her as she tried to pull herself up, he could see quite clearly her wounds were troubling her.

"Damn didn't I get back in the nick of time. Wonder if that doll really is lucky." He set her gently against the wall, she winced as her body changed positions,

"Huh?" She whispered, because that was all she could muster at the moment. The cut that Danic's nail had caused was bleeding openly and her breathing was yet to return to normal, not to mention beyond that her head was still ringing from the hit it took.

"That doll of yours." He brang it out from his pocket and showed her, "You dropped it. I think it helped me get here just before some real damage happened." He put it in her hand before bringing out another bag which was revealed to be full of bandages.

"I had a feeling something bad was going to happen, so I decided to be safe about it."

Her eyes fought to stay open at the moment, she was still very disorientated but she was fine enough for her to get out,

"Thanks."

She winced as her head fell against the wall, she pulled herself foward immediately before a dizzy spin over took her and she found herself falling. Yoshioka's arms caught her at the last second so more damage wasn't given to her head.

"You're bleeding."

"Tell me..some..thing I don know." Her drowsy voiced mumbled.

"I meant your head, it's bleeding." He pulled her closer to him, her dazed mind could barely tell what he was doing, all she knew was a pressure and stinging that came and went.

"Wha.." Her eyes were beginning to flutter open and closed,

"Cleaning the injury, it's better that way." He waited for the pain which was changing to more of a sore pain now she was so used to it. After it she could feel him wrapping a bandage around her head.

"My arm hurts Yoshi..." Her head leaned against him.

"Ara, keep awake until I'm done this."

He touched the arm furthest away from him, he could see it causing her visable pain. It didn't feel right under his fingers and obvious swelling was beginning to happen.

"Did they fling you at a wall or something? I think this might be broken."

Erina gave a small nod but didn't respond in any other way. He looked over to her half closed eyes before bringing out another bandage and wrapping it tightly around her elbow.

"I don't have a sling so keep in mind you shouldn't move this if you want it to heal properly." He informed her. His eye spied on the drying blood on the cut on her chest.

"Ara, take off your shirt."

For a split second red flashed on her cheeks.

"What why?"

"Because I can't help those cuts if there is something covering them." He told her sternly. "I understand it might be awkward considering what is under there but you need to have them cleaned or they could get infected."

The girl still looked at him in silence for some time before she complied to his requet. Her sore arms searched for the bottom struggling to see beyond the darkness of the room. She gripped it and slowly raised it upwards, her face was a shade of pink as it neared her chest. Yoshioka grew impatient from the time she took and ripped it from her grasp, she yelped when the frabric touched her injury a little too hard. He pulled it over her head and tossed it beside him. Erina was obviously embarrassed as she covered the majority with her arms.

"What I say? I need to clean the wound, you have to let me unless you want it to get worse" He gripped her arms and pulled them down. He went to work at cleaning up the dried blood, he was too serious about what he was doing to think of anything beyond helping her. When he had done that he softly wrapped a bandage round it in case of more possible bleeding, it was surprisingly deep considering how she got it. He handed her back her shirt and she put it back on, trying to hide her red face.

"Are you better now?" He asked, but got no reply as she fell onto him, soon he realised she had lost her battle staying awake.

"Jeez girl." He put her a better position and picked her up bridal style. He did his best so her head didn't hang down.

Yoshioka walked down the hallway moving to put her into her cell. The only place he could at the moment, she wouldn't be accepted to the infirmary, she never had before. He was in front of the door when someone called from behind him,

"You're quite good at that, ever thought of becoming a medic instead?" A cold voice sounded out, it was in no way intended to be a compliment. He was no more than mocking him. Yoshioka turned around to look at the man who had spoken,

"What is it Hojo?" He scowled.

The aging man shrugged, "Nothing much MR Dubois, I'm just curious what 1181 is to you."

Yoshioka's expression stayed the same. "I don't see how you could be any bit interested in that. And how about keeping in mind that she has a name for next time huh?"

"1181 name's is of no importance to me MR Dubois, it is nothing but my precious specimen. Now I wouldn't mind you answering my question."

The turk's glare deepened at the man before giving his answer.

"Herself." He turned and left.

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><p><strong>fun, I'm sorry to eri-chan, but it gets worse. <strong>

**Now if anyone is actually reading this wouldn't mind a review, bye bye**


	5. Conversation

**(1**,**762 words) I would say this is the shortest chaptet yet. But I don't really care, all I wanted was to do the first five chapters before I could continue with my other stories and I was getting annoyed with waiting so I made this as short as I could because I just wanted to hurry up and write other things. So no more rabid updates because this now goes into my loop and I have to write three other chaps for three other stories before I write one for this. Hope you enjoy this midjit chapter whoever is reading this**

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><p><strong>Wings of regret chapter 5: Conversation<strong>

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><p>Erina had gotten the one bed to herself again, it would be best because hopefully her injuries would heal faster than they would if she was on the hard ground. Her chest and head had a small stinging pain for it had reduced from both areas damatically in a short amount of time. Her arm did turn out to be broken, the skin around it was still swollen and red. It hurt heaps even when it wasn't in motion, the times she forgot about it and did move it were horrible, the pain was so intense; but that's is what happens when an insane person flings you at a wall.<p>

"It's a shame, if I felt better I could help you." Erina looked over to the green eyed woman, her focus was mainly to the redened arm, it looked like shit. She had been kneeling at the spot for some time now, but the wounded girl hadn't cared to make a response that she had noticed her presense.

"Don't worry about it Iffy, it'll heal regardless." Erina breathed out, she felt so tired at the moment. The pain from the drugs had left at the best time, but usually when the pain left it brought her waves of tiredness. So she was suffering with that and her current injuries. The only plus to this was that attack had pushed the next experimentation session further back, Hojo must be furious for sure.

Ifalna smiled at her with a sad expression in her eyes, she knew the girl wouldn't make much more of a response at the moment, she needed her rest. Her eyes drifted over to her daughter in the corner, she had been given Erina's angel doll to play with and was enjoying herself greatly it seemed. She was chatting her head off to the toy, of course the kid wasn't bothered that it wasn't possible for it to reply, it was someone different to talk to and that was enough. At the current time she was more worried about the doll's wings falling off, they weren't stitched on good and it was something of importance to the pre-teen.

Her eyes returned to her at that moment, to see that she had been gazing weakly at the same spot. Both attempted at a smile but no joyful feelings were portrayed, they weren't in a situation that called for it.

Erina shifted in the bed, it wasn't comfortable but staying in the exact same position just made it worse. Ifalna at the moment was looking down, her hands played with the hem of her dress.

"Danic tried to kiss me." Erina mumbled, she could fill something sink in her stomach. The mere mention of his name made her feel sick all over.

Ifalna lookedback up to her with the same expression of sadness as before.

"That would have been a horrid way to have a first kiss." Her voice wasn't showing her emotions in that sentence, if she had it would have been angry. But she forced herself not to voice anger at all near her daughter.

She was startled by the dry chuckle that Erina admitted,

"It wouldn't have been my first, but I don't know if I should be glad about it." She breathed, her changed position must have been putting more pressure on the injury on her head.

"It wouldn't have? shouldn't that be something to be glad about considering that monster wouldn't have been the first?" She glanced back at her daughter to make sure she wasn't listening.

"No, the first was a kid from Banora." She spat. For a yet to be mentioned reason this iritated her greatly.

"Do you care to explain why it's a source of annoyance for you?" She for sure had not missed the clear anger in the pre-teen's tone.

"It's simple enough I guess." She stated her reply off, before shifting again in the bed trying to find a position that wouldn't hurt her this time.

"Hmm," Ifalna listened.

"I ran into him because of something I was dared to do.."

"What were you dared to do?" A childish voice called in from behind them,

"Darling how long have you been listening?" Her mother turned back to face her.

She looked at both with her big innocent green eyes,

"I got bored, dolly don't speak." She pouted, "Eri! what's dolly's name!"

Ifalna looked back at the black haired girl, she had a shadow of a smile. It was strange how Aerith had such a brightness about her despite how she'd lived so far. The sick feeling in her stomach was disappearing just by looking at her beaming face. Sadly remembrances echoed in the back of her head of all the bad things of her existence.

"Answer her, everyone has a name don't they?" She smiled with hints of other emotions half hiding behind it.

Well this was something very un-Iffy like, was she messing with her? she knew the doll didn't have a name. But most kids aren't the types to take no for an answer. she wracked her mind and was surprised by her fast a name came to her,

"Lucy."

"Luuucyy." The child drawled, "It's pretty."

For a second Erina thought she would go back to playing with 'Lucy' but instead she walked over to her mother and hopped into her arms.

"Mamma, I'm tired," She dug her tiny into the woman's chest.

"That's because children aren't suposed to stay up this long." she scoldered her.

"Can me and Eri share the bed again?" She begged.

"Eri isn't well at the moment, you can't share right now."

"But the ground is cold mamma." She clung closer to her.

Erina watched them for a second before thinking up an idea to solve the complaint. she was about to lift her right arm but remembered the snapped elbow and switched it to her left and moved it up and pulled the blanket from her.

"Here," she handed it to Ifalna.

She stared at her blankly for a second, "You sure? Wounds heal faster when you're warm."

"It's fine, It takes a lot to make me cold keep in mind, she'd need it more. Don't want a sick child in here."

The older woman contemplated it for a second before making her decision. She took it from the girl's hand and wrapped it around her daughter gently. She moved to the side of the small room and rested her in the most comfortable position she could on the steel floor.

"Mamma will be with you in just a minute okay sweetie?"

"Kay mamma," The tiny child whispered before closing her eyes and trying to get to sleep in the less than comfy spot.

Ifalna left her and went back to the girl resting on the bed.

"I'm still interested in what you're talking about. When Aerith won't stop talking to you I've heard you mention going to Banora before, but you seem less than obliged to talk about it at all. And so the conversation always ends up at dumbapples, care to explain?"

"It's because there's a kid there that decided to mess with me whenever he saw me. It ended up being many times since I became close to a friend of his."

"That doesn't seem all that bad if you compare it to other things going on in you're life, what's so bad about it?" Ifalna kneeled down besides her.

"I'm scared it'll end up as more, it's why I hated whenever I was there even though I had a friend there that wasn't a total idiot for once. But the others I knew liked Banora and repeatively brought me back there."

"You could just be being paranoid about it getting worse. And if you're not than all you have to do is not go back there." She informed her, but it didn't help a thing.

"Yeah there's actually a problem with that," She mentioned with a dry chuckle.

"And that is?" Ifalna inquired,

"He wants to join ShinRa. Be apart of the military or somthing; I don't care what, the problem is simply that he does."

Ifalna studied the young girl's expression, there was something she wasn't saying. But she wasn't sure if she should be nosy about it and ask, she felt it wouldn't be right, if it was something she wanted to keep a secret then it was her choice. But little went amiss by the younger one, she could predict people's thoughts to near exact of what they were sometimes if they didn't hide their expression.

"Let's just say I know certain things about him that he doesn't know himself." She said simply.

"Is it because of your visions?" The older woman asked curiously.

"Yeah, I've known for awhile now. I feel like I should mention it but then there is a voice in my head that tells me against it. Like saying one word is going to drive him nuts."

Ifalna blinked fast, the way she said it made it sound worser than what she had originally thought it would be.

"It's that bad?"

"Yeah." Erina shifted again in her bed, "Like similar to what happened to me. So yeah it's bad."

"I feel sorry for the poor guy."

"I wouldn't, he's horrible and I don't doubt it will only get worse as time goes on."

a silence passed between them, Erina wasn't good for conversation in a bad mood, even the one she was currently talking to had troubles with her in this mood. She got up from her kneeling position.

"I'm sure everything will work out alright."

She left and went back over to her sleeping daughter who was snoring softly wrapped up in the blanket.

As much as she didn't believe it, she wished to god she could've been right.

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><p><strong>Review shall be nice but i know this will be ignored because people don't really read this story.<strong>


	6. taking the blame

**(9,082 words) I'm not dead, don't worry. Wow, haven't updated this in a damn long time, sorry about that for the few who do read this. Had other stories and assignments and all that crap plus I gave the DOCX to my beta last Sunday, so she took her time getting it back to me.**

**Well here is my apology by giving you the biggest chapter I've ever written. **

**Sorry if something's aren't as straight forward as they should be. My paranoia was ranting to me while I was writing this. If you are confused by anything put it into a review and I shall give you a better explanation (Hopefully)**

**Disclaimer: ****Hey, if I owned this can I go about saying that Vincent Valentine is legally my husband? Just curious, because when I rang square up and asked them, all I heard was laughing, think I heard baka in there a couple times too.**

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><p><em><strong><span>Wings of regret chapter 6:Taking the Blame<span>**_

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><p>Erina opened her eyes, and was greeted by a room full of shadows. She realised she was alone from the lack of even a breath besides her own. It wasn't night time; she could see slivers of light creeping in like snakes that, dull as they were, caused her eyes to sting from looking their way. It wasn't enough to know what time it may be; just enough to know it was some time during the day, or early dusk at most.<p>

Her injuries were healing well; besides the arm, all that was left were small marks. The swelling at her elbow had gone down but it was still excruciating to move. She could feel a clear difference from when she had first broken it.

She moved her gaze around the room to adjust her eyes to the minute supplies of light lingering about the cell. She hated the side effects she felt to the doses she was given; her head refused to stop its aching and the sickly feeling was slowly becoming worse and worse. Everything affected her in a strange way. She believed it was a part of why Hojo was so interested in her, though she was aware it was not the main one. It was complicated, and to any who didn't know she strongly had decided that they had no reason to know and thereby would never hear the words leave her lips.

It was in her genetics, from something that had happened to her mother before she was born. It was that woman's fault that she was stuck here, from what that sanity-lacking woman did. It was so pitiful; she couldn't even begin to describe her thoughts on the chain of events that had occurred thirteen years earlier.

To be honest, she was sure that that creepy professor had found it funny; she could remember him laughing at the then nine-year-old's face when she had first encountered him, commenting on her resemblance to an old college friend of his, and for having a glare that reminded him greatly of a man that had once gone as far as to try and shoot him.

Laughed, at that. Insane moron.

Because that is what you do when you're talking about a time someone had screamed they were going to murder you, laugh about it. Yeah, that made sense. Sometimes, Erina had to think maybe Hojo was born insane. He'd never given a single hint of possible sanity to anyone, not once in his life. And what he said to her when she was forced to look into his hideous face just further pointed out that obvious lunacy.

To him she was some kind of object to while away his time with, just a plain old specimen. She wasn't human to him; she managed to be both more and less than one in his eyes. Sure she had something that barely anyone else in the world had in her genetics, but he already had enough of that from the others, regardless they were few. She was an unintended spare, it didn't matter if she was wasted; he had more where that came from. She was a like a child's toy, one that could be thrown away when broken.

She was no longer a part of that experiment, but a new one, a pointless one that was almost like it had been made for her own personal torture. Maybe he was testing how far he could go with his experimentations with a being such as her. Or maybe he was simply curious about the reaction caused by each new test done to her; it had already been made known that the substances used have a different effect than it should, she didn't understand fully why that was so. The less likely reason was it something from her genetic heritage and the more than likely reason was from a certain experiment done whilst her mother had still been pregnant. That seemed to be the most believable answer, but she knew for a fact she wasn't the only one with the same done to them, so why was it only her that had these strange reactions?

Maybe it was because she was the only female out of them? Honestly that didn't even make sense, but how was she to know? It could very well have been that, considering there was nothing to disprove it.

She shook the thought out of her head, rather literally, and tried to lift herself up. She had managed to get her back off the steel cot before her head began spinning. Immediately her reaction was to lower herself back down but the shock of the sudden dizziness had caused her to basically drop. She flinched as the bump on the back of her head hit the thin material below it hard. A sound similar to a growl left her throat; she wished it would just heal up and she could be fine. But considering she, a twelve year old, had gotten it from being flung at a wall by a maniac, she had her doubts about it leaving her anytime soon.

Erina tried again to get up, deciding to do it in an altered position and for obvious reasons at a slower pace. The spinning feeling hit her head again but its effects were reduced and it no longer caused her to fall back down thanks to her readiness. Erina pulled herself up into a sitting position with a little struggle and drew her legs close to her for warmth with her one good arm. If it was any colder she swore she'd be able to see her breath moving about in front of her face. Her body was covered by a million little goosebumps and the material of the clothes she wore froze her pale skin.

She surveyed her empty surroundings that had become so familiar to her in the past few years. It was what one would expect for a cell, a bed, a toilet, with steel walls and door with a barred window; damn was it a tiny little space. And she was made to share this with two more unfortunate souls. This was as big as someone's bedroom if that; it sickened her to think that the small child whose face was of course a common sight for her as this was the place she was stuck for the majority of the time, had spent almost all her life in places such as this. The mere thought made her sick to the core; it was cruelty what happened to her herself, but that child hadn't done the slighted bit of harm to anyone ever plus the fact of her being less than half of Erina's age. Sickening was right.

Heh, if she concentrated she could hear complaining from the others, the so called criminals, in their own respective cells. Some may have been what they had been titled, but some of those people could've been people that had simply wronged ShinRa in some way or another. It usually didn't happen to be a decent logical cause for imprisonment. But ShinRa was ShinRa after all, that's just how they roll.

Erina sighed to herself; this whole company was made from a mountain of shit. The employees were an army of assholes and sanity-challenged morons. She lay back down, careful not to cause any pain to her arm, and shut her eyes. She guessed that, maybe, she had done worse to the company in the end then what the others could dare.

It had been so goddamn stupid, a little prank done by a friend: that had gotten her caught up in all this. Why hadn't she tried harder to get her to leave that place? Why? She couldn't remember. Why be bothered? All she knew that it was that bitch Jessica's fault that she was here right now, and that was that.

As she felt herself start to drift off, she expected her tormenting nightmare world would come running for her. Instead, the memory floating over each thought took over her mind, and refused to be let out.

…

"Jess, what the hell are you doing!" A younger version of the girl currently locked up in a ShinRa cell was yelling at a tall redhead standing behind a large prickly bush surrounded by roseate ground consisting of tiny rocks and kicked up soil.

Jessica Dusk was, at the current time of the memory, a 16 year old girl full of too much confidence for her own good. She had been some kind of a comfort for Erina when they had first met, seeing as the teenager was the only other person she'd met that not only believed in the idea of visions but shared the peculiar ability. She stood almost two heads over the tiny girl, dressed in an extravagant black and grey dress stopping at her knees. The sleeves puffed out like a princess's gown and the ashen skirt stuck out with the help of a jet black petticoat barely visible under the garb itself. Her hair if not tied up would have reached close to mid-way down her back, but as it was stuck in a pony-tail all it could do was brush the bottom of her fair neck. Her hair was badly dyed a dazzling red, with streaks of impossibly dark brown on the bottom and near her roots. A self-assured smile was permanently stuck on her face.

"Getting a closer look, what do you think?" Jessica kneeled down and hid better behind the deep green leaves. Sometimes her personality was too much to take and all you'd want to do was punch her. She was optimistic to the extreme, believing that nothing bad would come to her so long as she never gave up. Usually this was a good thing for most, but for Jessica, it could very well prove deadly.

She had a habit messing around with ShinRa if she ever encountered them, it was never much what she did, but eventually, Erina was certain; her victims would get sick of her. There were a number of ShinRa agents out doing 'some random shit', as Jess had wonderfully put it on first taking notice of the men. She couldn't have cared less what they had been doing, she just wanted some entertainment.

So she'd gone out and punctured the wheels of the truck while they'd been out.

And now they were back, loading up the monster of a machine with cages and barrels filled with who knows what, it was far too hard to make out even from this position.

"Jess, we need to get out of here!" Erina tugged gently at the older girl's arm, openly worried.

"And why's that?" Her friend chuckled, having so much fun already, and nothing had happened yet.

"Well for one, no one but us is here; don't you think they'll find that suspicious? They'll know it was us!" Erina begged her to understand, she didn't like the look of the men, not an ounce. She'd seen one or two in a vision before she was sure, they had been short, but they had been plenty enough for her to know not to trust these men.

Jess brushed her off, sniggering, "Oh Snakey-Chan you're just being a worrywart. I'll be fine and so will you!" She lifted herself up an inch to get a better look of the road ahead.

The truck was starting up, its gigantic wheels kicking up the dirt previously beneath it. The engine roared like a monster preparing for attack and just like that it was moving along. For a minute it looked to be fine, but then Jess's attack was made obvious when it slowed to a dreadfully slow pace and the wheels' deflation was even easier to see. Jess stood up straight and grinned broadly; with a laugh loud and clear for everyone to hear.

A man in a military uniform got out to check the problem, coming quickly upon the punctured wheels. He signalled to a man sitting at the open door to the vehicle; he sat calm and collected with an aloof expression. He nodded slowly and turned his head to inform the ones remaining inside. A slight man in a white lab coat pushed past him and hurried over to the soldier. His hair was a light hazel and from the looks of thing he couldn't be too old, an apprentice or the like.

Erina felt an immediate change in atmosphere between the two; it was an unusual mix of worry and an overwhelming feeling of unsettlement.

The man at the door was ignoring the panic being sent between the two at his side, but of course that was when Erina noticed, his sight was locked onto them. She had to force herself not to freak out; she looked up at Jessica, who was no longer laughing her merry little head off but now instead grinned insanely at the poor people.

"Jess! He's looking at us!" She hissed, pulling at the girl's knee length sock.

"Oh shit, you're right!" She gasped and ducked down, holding onto her stomach like she was sick enough to puke.

It was too late anyway; the man who'd been at the door was now running over to them with the soldier who'd been investigating the wheels beforehand. They rounded the bush they had less than cleverly hid themselves behind, and held up their respective guns to each girl. The military man's rifle made for an intimidating site, but he himself didn't look much of a sight. It was the other they feared more, his black suit was a tell-tale sign of him being a Turk. Oh what 'wonderful' luck they had today.

Erina had pretty much figured out what was going on from what little she'd seen. Some members of the science department had been out collecting something or another; and so these men were their guards. And stupid Jessica had gone blind to the potential danger and done her usual, she should have figured out by now not to touch anything when those wack-jobs were around.

"Do you know who they are sir?" The military man asked the lanky Turk to his right. His expression was impossible to see thanks to his helmet but his voice was laced with curiousness.

The man sniggered, "Personally I ain't got no idea. But I've heard of a little red headed girl wandering about in a lot of little 'mishaps', so it's got me wondering. They could be our culprits, now couldn't they?" He eyed them harshly, allowing himself a smirk.

Erina shivered under his cold stare and moved herself closer to the bigger girl to her side. Jess herself yanked up her legs close to her body, she couldn't stand the way he was looking at her. His eyes had lingered a second too long on her protruding stomach, she knew he couldn't have cared, but it didn't make a good sight to be sixteen and pregnant.

"So you're saying this girl is a repeat offender then?" The soldier asked inquiringly. The response was a slight nod.

"That would be right." He paused, eyeing them again with that same frosty look. "You two are coming with us." He ordered dead serious.

"What!" Jess screamed angrily, "Hell no! What makes you think I will!" it didn't take long for the flames to appear in her eyes. She had a short temper if you were brave enough try and piss her off.

"Well I'd say maybe having no one here but you is good enough evidence to say you're the guys that have caused us trouble ain't it?" He laughed and took a step closer; the soldier copied his movement hastily.

"Or screw you bastard, I'm not going with you and that's final." Jessica hissed like an angry snake when the Turk continued to ignore her dispute. He forced himself not to laugh at her strange reaction.

The teen lashed out with her left foot and rammed it into his lower leg. He winced as the spiked boot hit him but made no other reaction, and, still refused to let her go.

"Like that is going to get you anywhere slut!" He growled and holstered her up forcefully. She complained in a whine and tried to get out of his grasp but in her condition it was more than troublesome. The soldier quickly followed and picked up Erina from her place glaring at them from the ground. The child, who even at her age managed to be stronger than her teenage friend, put up more of a fight for who was holding her in his grip. She had always been small, and in this situation did her best to use that to her advantage, finding quickly that his hold was slipping already.

"Sir this one seems more stubborn. I'm having trouble keeping hold…" He stopped when Erina slammed her foot into his thigh and took the second he needed to recover as a chance to escape.

She didn't get far as the Turk pushed Jessica into the other man's hands and went after her. She was fast, but she was nothing but a kid and in no way expected to be ever able to outrun a trained Turk.

"Come here you little snot!" He grabbed onto her hair and tugged her harshly, knocking the kid off her feet. "What makes you think you could outrun us huh?" He picked her up and twisted her around to face him, seeing the way her flaming eyes flickered in different shades. He gave her an unnerving smirk, and muttered "interesting," under his breath. Suddenly while she was distracted by his stare he picked her up and carried her small body over his shoulder, her legs kicked every part of him that they could reach.

"Everyone does stupid things sometimes don't they? In fact you're doing it right now!" She spat and rammed her left foot into his stomach, a cough escaped him and his grip slackened, but he did not let go.

"I haven't done anything let me go!" She screamed. But he ignored her and soon the Turk had gotten back to the soldier whose grip was on an agitated Jessica. The tall man gave the soldier a smile hinting strange thoughts for reasons lost on the other man.

"Come on, we're taking these two back with us..."

"Both of them?" The military man's questioning voice interrupted him.

"Yes, both of them." He replied with a glare and extra emphasis on the 'both'.

"Come on." He monotonously commanded and proceeded to walk off back to the truck.

Erina's breathing was becoming difficult with the pressure on her chest, she feared if this man would dare intend to keep her like this was a prolonged period of time, she doubted she could keep herself conscious if it went on like this for much longer. The last she could remember seeing was Jessica's large sorry eyes pleading with her for forgiveness.

…

Erina's eyes snapped open, finding herself back in the cell. The darkness encircled everything and it dawned on her night had fallen. She found that she was still by herself in the grey room. It must have been late in the day when she'd initially woken; for she was never completely alone for a large amount of time.

Her mind wandered over the memory of that time, she knew how sorry Jess was about the event; she knew what was happening to her. Not all the details or why, but she was aware. But no matter how much she wanted forgiveness, Erina wouldn't let her have it, not now, not ever. Jessica deserved her hate.

As her eyes lingered shut again, the last part of the day drifted into her head, and she was forced to witness it all over again.

…

Jessica and Erina were thrown against the back of the truck while the men talked amongst themselves what to do with the girls. They had payed no attention to the eldest's condition, not like they could with the stranger that they all suspected had caused this.

Erina tried to listen in but found it near impossible from how quiet they'd made themselves, it was irritating actually; she did her best to make out their words and barely picked up a word or two from each sentence. She did manage to get one sentence at least, something along the lines of 'He's going to be pissed.' From the Turk that had caught them, who just so happened to be standing closest to their position

Whoever this 'He' was was lost upon her as she continued making the attempt of hearing their discussion. She would have to learn that later.

"Can you let us go?" Jess complained from by her side, cradling her large belly. "Do you really care that much!" She yelled louder in hopes it would gain their attention.

One or two of the men gave her an annoyed look and the others shrugged her off, the Turk however, with his obvious short temper turned right around and delivered her a livid scowl. He stormed right up to them with fiery eyes.

"Yeah, well maybe we do, have you thought of that!" He spat. His eyes narrowed with hate of the redhead. "Usually I wouldn't be giving a shit but right now was a hell of a bad time for you to be pulling tricks." His voice became more laced with resentment. "You see; those scientists' guys I've been protecting had well…some 'important business' to do; and now thanks to you, I've got to deal with them being all pissed off and up in my face over all this. So how do think I feel right now huh!" He spat on the ground in front of Jess's feet, to which she swiftly dragged them closer to her so it wouldn't touch her.

The two were exchanging flaming looks with each other; they each had a good reason to be in a bad mood for sure.

"Um, Jay, I think you're being too harsh on the girl." The hazel haired scientist they'd seen earlier called out from behind him. For a second Erina thought that the Turk would ignore him, but that thought lasted only five seconds at tops for he twisted around to the younger man and chose now to yell at him instead.

"You really think that don't you? You know we don't have any spare tires right!" Now I have to go call up HQ for help here, do you know how long we are going to be stuck here?" He quivered with rage. Erina had to note, if she ever met him again, she would chose it best not to say one word to him. She'd figured his temper was short but this wasn't what she'd expected.

The scientist froze for a second, swallowing the lump in his throat before he could continue,

"I realise that, but we can wait. Do you really think people will get that angry because of this? I mean we're all fine right now." He held out his arms to the side gesturing to all the men outside.

The Turk's smirk deepened and he tilted his head in a way which exclaimed 'Do you really think that?'

"Now don't you think that there's a certain someone here that is going to be damn pissed?" He chuckled evilly speaking with major emphasis on 'someone'.

The man froze again, and this time made no comeback, knowing full well he'd been beaten.

From the Turks comment a feeling of worry settled with the men in the area, like a massive realisation had dawned on them all. The man had been right; there was a certain being with them soon to be very upset when the news reached his ears.

Jessica eyed them acutely as the aura fell upon them, clueless. She noted that besides her, her friend did not hold the same feeling of semi-confusion. Most times she felt like the child knew everything, even with a young mind like hers she always managed to figure out and understand what was going on in situations all else were made clueless. It was the fault of her visions, they were so constant for her, always blaring behind her eyes straight into her head each time someone opened their mouth to her. At times Jess was made to wonder how Erina could talk to people when a life was being told to her piece by piece at a speeding race, it would make it unbelievable hard to concentrate. She herself saw visions, but they were almost a rare occurrence.

It made the kid mature to a point that she felt like she was the youngest out of them. But the fact of her pregnancy had virtually swiped that thought out of her head, for now at least.

"Hey Erina, what's up with the jerk-show? They look all worried. They were pretty damn fine a minute ago." She shook her companion's small shoulder.

She had to wait for a minute for the slightest response, as for now her visions had completely taken over her mind. It was uncommon but it still happened if the girl was silent for a prolonged time. Erina looked up, with her chocolate eyes changed to a pale green. They were so bright you'd think they were glowing.

Her mouth opened so as to speak but words didn't come out. Jess's eyes focussed on the look in her eyes, she was scared.

"Snakey-Chan? You alright?" She shook her shoulder again.

Erina's mouth made the same movement as before, still nothing came out. Jessica worried more as the child dug her head into the crook of her neck.

"Eri…"

"I feel sick." She whispered against her ear.

The teen smiled with a dejected look in her eyes,

"That would make two of us." She laughed, holding her stomach lightly.

The rest of the memory still felt so vivid to her, that it was almost sickening. She had her head resting against a confused Jessica when the sound of feet hitting the ground was heard; signifying someone new had left the vehicle. The movement of his feet were rushed showing that this person was in no good mood. With her head down she didn't see him as he rounded the corner of the truck but she did feel a frightening presence come with him. So he was the source of the atmosphere that had settled amongst the men here.

"What's going on here? I don't have all day!" A chilling voice questioned the men in front of her.

Erina moved her gaze to the left, but kept it low, having no want look him in the face. She caught the sight of a lab coat swaying in the wind and the feet of all else pointing to an obvious uneasy stance. Looks like this man has them scared shitless already.

"Um, well sir..." The Turk stuttered; any anger at all left him completely in that sentence.

"This girl here punctured the wheels, and we don't have any spares. So we have to call for some support." He pointed at Jessica.

The man; looked her up and down with slight curiosity, "So this is the one that would dare to interrupt my important business?" He paused, "See that this fool is punished when we get back."

"Hey…!" Jessica started but froze under his frosty glare. Erina saw the fear she had in her eyes, even if Jess didn't manage to be the brightest, the teen would be able to tell the difference between bad people and the good. And for this man, even his presence screamed an unspoken evil.

"Didn't your parents ever tell you not to talk back to your elders?" A man near the back asked her harshly.

"Obviously not thank you very much." She snorted in reply, holding Erina closer to her. She wasn't going to pry into the reason, but the child seemed to be in an insanely bad mood ever since that black haired man had stepped out of the truck. She gave him a nasty glare when his gaze lingered onto Erina's tiny form.

"And who's the child?" He asked the Turk to his right.

"A…an accomplice," He stuttered. "We don't think she was actually involved in what the other has done, but for the fact she did nothing to prevent it serves as a reason for punishment in itself." He shuffled uneasily as the scientist bored his eyes into him for a second.

"Is that so?" He turned his sight back to Erina. "Well you can't go ahead to think a child is smart enough to stop someone from sabotaging a truck now can you?" He laughed bitterly.

The child in question didn't miss the sound Jess emitted from the man's comment, sounding remarkable similar to a dog's growl.

"Oh shut up, Snakey-Chan did nothing! And yes she did try to stop me, she's not stupid. Don't take her as being so childish!" Jess wrapped her arms as tight as she could around her friend as she scowled at the men surrounding her. Some held looks of surprise that the teenager didn't give a shit over who she did happen to be talking to, she would say what she wanted regardless. Well she'd always been one for speaking her mind.

"Snakey-Chan?" The intimidating man chuckled, "what could possess you to give a small child such an irrelevant name, Last time I checked the habit of nicknames usually tended to be relevant to the person who the name belongs to." He paused and took in a breath. "But your previous statement already pointed out your own stupidity did it not?"

Jess made no reply to him; instead she turned her head and muttered to herself. Her voice was too quiet for all but Erina to hear, which the sentences Jess said to herself all involved the fact of how idiotic these people had decided to view her. The short tempered girl had to use a lot of resistance not to flip out on them.

Both in this second missed the hand sign that the Turk gave the scientist, pointing at his eyes and then to Erina. It only took a second for the man to realise that he was trying to tell him without words of something peculiar about her eyes.

So she jumped when he suddenly commanded her to "Show me your face."

Obviously his patience had already been worn out today but that in no way meant that Erina would listen to him. She twisted her face more away from his direction and hid it completely from him.

She heard a sound of annoyance come from him, and had a sudden urge to laugh as a result.

"Show me your face little girl!" He demanded louder this time, but still she refused.

"Oh I hate being called 'little girl', did you really think that would help you lunatic?" She spat under her breath, but she knew he'd still heard it.

"It hardly matters; all that does is that you do as I say. Do you have any idea who I am?" He questioned poisonously.

Against what may have been the smarter thing to do, she laughed, a dry harsh sound.

"And if I do?" She'd long since recognised that voice.

"All the smarter to comply then wouldn't it?" He asked, in the same venomous voice. As yes, as she'd figured, his patience was long gone.

Still she didn't give a damn, and further decided to piss him off. It wasn't like her to get like this, but something had come over her, it was too late to stop now.

"And you sound like that wolf from that Akazukin-Chan story." She giggled, almost insanely, she could tell that she was beginning to creep out the poor girl next to her; there was just something in her voice that was...unnerving.

"It's nothing impressive knowing a bit of Wutanese, you wouldn't be able to make yourself sound smarter by doing so. Now I think it's time for you to finally listen to…"

"And I think it's time for you to leave me alone you psychopath, How 'bout that now ha?"

Jess half jumped at her friend's interruption, something was off about her, sure the kid got angry but it wasn't ever like this! Who the hell was this guy to make her go like this?

She in no way got the man to leave; in fact she pretty much had made him snap. He stormed over to her and lifted her face to his. Her face originally showed shock over the suddenness of the grab, but she quickly made sure to change it, and by the time she faced him, it was a death stare full of hate.

She knew it had been him, a man who she'd seen a million times before in her visions, it couldn't be anyone but him. The white lab coat, damn ugly face and black hair tied up into a pony tail, which from this position had slipped her over his left shoulder. She wanted to puke.

She cursed her strange eyes, and that odd habit of theirs. For she knew at the moment that they had turned to a very pale green, with eyes like slits, and the faint glow all the more easy to see.

He seemed to be very interested in them, not for how they perfectly explained that 'Snakey-Chan' nick name, but for their resemblance to another.

He laughed, loud in his deep unnerving laugh. His eyes stared into hers for a moment longer until his let her go and stood back up.

"Heh, how interesting. You're quite the find aren't you?"

She didn't miss the look Jess had given her, she didn't understand at all. Sure Erina's eyes were odd but, what did he mean by 'quite the find'? There had to be more to it.

The scientist's eyes were unmoving, locked onto the small girl that sat at his feet, whose eyes were like vicious daggers heading for his heart.

"I didn't expect you'd still hold such resemblance to her, it's quite a surprise to be honest." He laughed, and only became louder when he took notice of the way her stare altered, it was proof she was in knowledge of what he was going on about. How interesting.

"In fact I guess I can see both of them in you; not only from that dark hair that's so similar to his, but that look in your eyes, it's strange how it feels like it hasn't been so long since I had seen someone with such a deathly stare. Of course it was a long, long time ago wasn't it?" He laughed, "That that idiot was threatening to shoot me." His laughing didn't stop; the sound was beginning to become disturbing.

The men behind him and Jessica held expressions of absolute perplexity; none had a single idea of what was going on. But that wouldn't have mattered; it had nought to do with them.

The psycho knelt down again and grasped Erina's chin, forcing her to look directly at him, "But we aren't going to have something like that happen are we?" He asked menacingly.

Erina said nothing, why bother, she didn't care what he was saying to her. He was a lunatic, and that was that. In fact, here's a better thing, take advantage of the close proximity.

She smirked to herself, catching for a second a face showing a hint of confusion. Of course, she had no reason to smile at the moment, what on earth could have possessed her to do so?

"How but you go die?" She sniggered before spitting in his face and trying her best not to laugh at his expression. Like he would have expected it, most people would have been brighter, but she couldn't have cared less.

He was stunned for a second there, face almost frozen in the same position as he pulled away. He instantly wiped away the saliva. He stood up straight with his eyes ablaze, and ordered to the men around him,

"Throw both of them into the back of the truck; they can stay there until we receive help. I'll work out what to do with them later." His voice was fuming, so no one dared to disobey.

The soldier that they'd encountered earlier on picked up Jess while another opened the back before given room for the teen to be thrown in. Before she could do one thing Erina found herself shoved in along with her. The men quickly shut the door, leaving it open just a crack so they wouldn't suffocate.

Erina clawed at the door trying to get it open but found that it was to no avail. She sat defeated by it, while Jess groaned in the behind her, rubbing her back which had hit a crate a mite too hard.

"Jeez you'd think they were trying to make me have a miscarriage."

She pulled herself up, seeing herself greeted by almost complete darkness.

"Oh great, just wonderful." She muttered sarcastically, before picking up a feral sound. "What the?" she turned to see pair of animal eyes boring into her. She became immobilised from shock, but managed to get out, "Fiends! But why are they here?"

Erina turned around to her, her eyes which had returned to their natural brown flickered green once again, and were bright enough they became like a torch in the darkness.

"Specimens," She stated, sure of herself. And Jess didn't question.

…

A snapping sound woke her up. Erina opened her eyes and was brought back to her reality, greeted by the same loneliness and shadows that she had left last time her eyes had closed. She was wondering what had roused her from her sleep. But the sound of a breath made her realise what it was, someone was standing by the door of her cell, it was too quiet for it to be anyone in the same room, it had to be form there.

She couldn't see anything but the roof from her view point, so she decided to try and get herself to sit up. Erina went to move her arm but found it had gone numb from being stuck in the same position for too long, so she tried clenching her hand and shaking the arm it to regain feeling, it was what had worked all the times before. When she'd gotten it back she ended up with a pins and needle sensation, but went about ignoring it as she lifted herself up, the trouble she was having with it was decreasing thanks to her dizzy spins not being as bad as they used to be. She continued to feel sore, but her good arm was virtually unaffected. Her head had a tiny throbbing feeling, but it wasn't bad enough to stop her from turning her head to the door. She lifted her legs and swung them over the edge of the metal bed where they were left to dangle. It was a more comfortable position for her, as she didn't want to put herself through that much; she was still healing.

Through the small barred part of the door she spotted a pair of unfamiliar eyes staring intensely at her.

"What!" She growled, if he was some kind of an idiot she wanted him to leave now.

"You don't have to be like that do you? I was told you look like her; I just wanted to confirm it for myself." He answered, if she could see his face she'd expect to see the man pouting.

"So what if I look like her, she's my mother." She spat, making the man go into a silence. Maybe he hadn't expected her to say it that way.

"Well you sound nice don't you?" He declared sarcastically after a minute. "You're not like either of them."

She paused.

"Them?" She asked sounding almost innocent, which took the stranger aback.

"Your parents, what did you think I meant?" He laughed.

"Most don't know who both of them are. They go ahead and say that my father is her husband."

It was his time to pause now. "Well that's stupid. Isn't he the one that put you in this situation? I know he's nuts but I don't think even he could do that to his own daughter."

She sniggered at that, how stupid,

"Well obviously you don't know Hojo very well then. It wouldn't change anything if he was, it would just make what he says to me more twisted."

"God that must suck." The man responded.

Erina was going to say more but when she opened her mouth he had already left. She sighed and slowly made herself lie back down. Who on earth was that? And why did he know who her parents were?

Despite all the sleep she was getting she still felt overwhelmingly tired, and found herself yet again slipping into slumber. This time it was neither her nightmare world nor a memory that chose to greet her, but a vision from years ago as clear in her mind as the day she had it. She could remember exactly where she was on that day; she had been in this very cell, sitting against the wall feeling a coldness she'd never felt before, crying to herself for a reason she barely knew.

…

The president of the ShinRa power company sat behind his desk, a teenage boy holding onto the hand of a girl his age was situated to the left on the other side. Professor Hojo stood enraged near the front of the room.

He would have rather avoided this argument, but Hojo never remained in a good mood for long. And thanks to the girl close to him, a fearful expression present on her face, it had gone and happened once again, the furious scientist was having another rant at him. The loon would have gotten his way, but thanks to the boy also present, who had gone and invaded his office; this argument had become inescapable.

Apparently the girl, if he'd heard right her name was Jess, had punctured the wheels of a truck which was being used by certain ShinRa employees, Hojo being one of them. Because to the unexpected occurrence, they'd been stuck there for 12 hours waiting for help to come. This had put the professor in an insanely bad mood, which had ended up with him strongly wanting the teenager to be punished. But also thanks to a certain connection he'd been previously unaware of, that had become difficult. For the boy holding her hand right now had a little connection with the president he was less than welcome to admit to.

Hojo was directing an equal amount of anger to all three in the room with him; he had a reason to be angry at all of them. The president for his stupidity at the current time, the girl for having made herself a major inconvenience to him already; and the boy for making this this occur in the first place.

However he managed to find out that this girl was here didn't matter to him, but the president mustn't have been very smart if he was going to go through with the deal the boy had made with him.

From what had been said to him, in a minute amount of detail, this boy was making himself an even bigger bother to ShinRa then the idiotic girl by his side, going as far to blackmail the higher-ups of the company. On the account that the girl was his partner, he'd promised to stop it if they let her go. This just put Hojo in a worse mood because he couldn't think of the teen going unpunished for what trouble she had caused him.

"So you've brought me up here to inform me that this moronic girl is to go unpunished? After what she did? They've been aplenty who've done lesser to ShinRa and have all failed to get away with it. Why now?" He inquired severely.

The president held back a sigh, eyes lingering for a second to the boy in the corner; he did not miss the smug grin the 16 year gave to him. Though the president had won for now, it was going to come at a price for him. He would have to handle this gently so Hojo's mood didn't explode at him.

"Well it's a little complicated really." He started shakily, "But I don't doubt that if I ignore this boy's offer he is going to come back continuously and eventually force me to let the girl go anyway. And when it gets to that I would have to guess the offer will be off by then." He did his best to say it in a way that would tick of Hojo the least.

"Is there really anything that bad he could do? He's just some kid taking advantage of his fathers screw ups and using it as black mail. There's only one person he can hurt here and no one will believe him anyway." Hojo replied, certain of it to be the truth.

The president didn't try to hold back his sigh this time, "Well, that's the problem. He..." The he paused, realising he had forgotten the boy's name; he looked off to him, receiving an all knowing look.

"It's Rhapsody you fat bastard." He spat poisonously, bright azure eyes on fire.

He shifted uncomfortably in his large chair, that look gave him a feeling that the teen was literally out to end him.

"Yes…uh…well Rhapsody has a natural talent in finding out things without much help and so it's not just my reputation he has the potential to damage. And just maybe, with as much as he knows, he's got enough to be believed." The president unsteadily got around saying. "So if I'm able to get him off my back I would have to say I'd jump at the chance."

Hojo did nothing but glare.

"So you're letting this nuisance off for such a reason, with no punishment at all?"

"That would be right." The president mumbled, feeling ill at ease under the scientist's cold stare.

"Idiotic, maybe if you hadn't ended up being so stupid to end up with that illegitimate son than you wouldn't have ended up with this problem in the first place." He pivoted with intent on leaving,

"You even seem to be giving him higher credit than what he's earned, from the looks of things he's not going to end up much different than you at the rate he's going." He added on, referring to the state of the boy's girlfriend.

Hojo with his back turned didn't see the look of disgust Rhapsody gave him. He'd never end up like his father, marry a woman for her looks and then proceed to cheat on her with a million other women. But that wasn't the important part here, there was one more thing he had to say before that loon left and he lost his chance.

"Wait!" He called out pleading. Hojo turned his head just a bit to view the teen looking at him with begging eyes.

"What about Erina!" He questioned anxiously.

"The child? Last time I checked your deal with your father had nothing to do with her, but simply the whore next to you."

Jess winced at the insult, but she let it pass as her concern was needed more for her friend.

"But she didn't do anything! Why won't you lunatics let her go?" He screamed panicking.

Hojo laughed his deep and disturbing laugh, mocking the boy's plea.

"I'm well aware of that, but you see that girl was my property long before you met her." He revelled in the upset looks he received. "I was quite troubled when I lost her, I'm very glad to have gotten her back, my thanks to you." He nodded to Jessica.

Her face turned to distraught and she dug it into the crook of Rhapsody's neck to hide the tears that were welling up. He felt the warm droplets fall down his back. Anger sprung up in him.

"She's not your property you psychotic bastard! A person can't be your 'property'." He cried, turning his head to the startled president still sitting comfortably in his seat. "Do something, I beg you, she didn't do anything; she doesn't deserve this!" He had to hold back a sob, he'd only known the girl two years in all, sure she had one hell of a short temper, but she was his friend and he cared for her like a big brother does for their little sister.

The president looked irritated for a second and stood up straight and yelled back.

"Look, I've agreed to your deal, don't beg me for more you stupid bastard child! Leave, you are to have nothing to do with me anymore!" He pointed at the door.

The teen's look of hurt did nothing to him, he was well aware their relation but neither had ever cared for it.

Rhapsody squeezed the crying Jessica's hand tightly and turned heading for the door. He paused where Hojo stood giving him a smug victory grin. He narrowed his hateful eyes, lifting up his free hand. He slapped the man across his face and knocked him of his feet. Before he left he told him one more thing.

"I hope you die a horrible painful death you sick freak."

…

Erina felt a salty tear slide off the side of her face, she'd barely noticed it until it was about to slip off onto her thin pillow. Why was she sad? Because of what was happening to her? Because how much her poor friends were left to worry about her without a clue what was going on?

Or because of her own hatred for herself?

She had chosen to hate those people she'd once known as friends, but why had she done that? It was Jessica's fault that she was here, that Rhapsody just left and didn't try to do more. But they worried sincerely for her, they were scared for her. They had tried to save her from this, whether or not they'd succeeded.

Maybe she had always hated them, sure they had their good points, but they were annoying, everyone was annoying to her. She used to always flip at them for the slightest things, why had she managed to have friends anyway? She was so mean to them most of the time, or being against what they wanted, even if they had it right.

She was such a horrible person, she was a bitch, she couldn't be nice, or take a joke. Why were there people that cared about her? Why did they bother with her when she was like she was?

They were nice people, so unlike her. She felt sick having to know they wasted their time on someone such as herself, she wanted to puke she felt so sick.

Jess must be blaming herself for what happened, well it was her fault, if she hadn't been so stupid and got out of there she wouldn't have been reconnected to ShinRa, and everything could still be fine in her life. Jessica was a nice person most the time, but she hated her and that was that, she hated everyone. With barely an exclusion at all, and thanks to her godforsaken visions that was an army.

If she hadn't met those people she wouldn't be here. She wouldn't be locked in a cell getting experimented on, getting abused because she didn't want to do as others said, with a constant fear she was going to be bloody raped. Her life was a pitiful excuse of an existence.

And they were the ones to take the blame.

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><p><strong>Now if there is anyone reading this beyond my big sister, who will die if she reviews it before anyone else does, make your existence known by giving me a lovely likkle review why don't 'cha me pretties?<strong>

**~Serah Villiers Valentine. **


	7. I have nothing

**(4,866 words) I forgot my beta even had this...until she sent the DOCX only a couple hours ago. I would have updated straight away, but I was watching a very interesting movie. So sorry that it's taking so long to update, computer problems and all that.**

**It should be after this chapter when the story becomes less OC ridden, because I know that happens when Eri-chan is thirteen. But I don't know how to do it. Obviously she has to become connected to some of the real characters, but I don't know how...any suggesstions?**

**I've changed the description for this story a million times, and about a month ago I gave it to my sister and she wrote a new one for me. Apparently she was randomly blabbering according to her, but what she got was pretty god damn accurate for someone that knows barely anything about this story. **

**Well, bye for now, enjoy,**

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII, I'm just married to Vincent.**

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><p><em><strong>wings of regret chapter 7:<strong>_

_**I have nothing**_

* * *

><p>It was funny, was the beginnings of a thought that passed by Erina's head as she stared near blankly at the five year old child in front of her, how much brighter the cell seemed to be when there was the presence of others nearby, ones she could deem trustworthy at that. The little girl was stuck in the constant chatter and questions that kids always do. Her mind wasn't in the mood to listen but she was sure the gist of the conversation had something to do with the angel doll in her tiny hands. She was very interested in it, perhaps because the doll, on the spot named 'Lucy', was someone else to talk to besides her mother and the black haired girl that didn't find talking fun. Obviously during her short life she hadn't had a toy before so maybe she also liked it so much because she had one now, even if it be technically Erina's.<p>

She was holding it out with her arms fully outstretched, questioning the little details now that her mind was running out of things she could say, and kids didn't like being quiet. She was pointing to the parts of her blonde hair and curiously asking why there was a brown streak; and pointing to the white dress and asking the practically identical question of why there were random patches of lilac. She could easily answer and saw that they were its original colours (Though that might end up with her getting more questions as she didn't know if the girl was aware of dyes), but she really couldn't be bothered to open her mouth and talk.

She wasn't sure why, she wasn't quite tired, she wasn't quite in a bad mood of any sorts; she just didn't want to talk. She didn't want to sleep either, she wouldn't anyway if she were in the mood to, the mother of the child in front of her had taken the bed, she'd been sickly of late and she wanted to be nice to her. Well she gave Ifalna no reason to be nice to her and yet she did anyway, so why not do the same back?

"…And I think her wings are going to fall off." She caught the end of one of Aerith's sentences, it was then she noticed the kid looking up to her with expecting eyes. She had slight regrets that she hadn't been listening to her now; what did she want? Did she want to see if she was right? Maybe; it seemed to make the most sense.

Erina took a second to inspect the sewn-on wings of the doll, she found herself giving them a soft poke to see how they stood against it. The yellow thread that been holding them to the back of the dress could be seen, slightly more loose on the left side. She knew it wasn't an expert that attached them in the first place, she was surprised it had even lasted four years, though for sure the dye lasting that long was even more of a feat.

"She'll survive for a bit longer," Erina deduced after her quick check. She received a smile that spread across the adorable girl's features.

Aerith went back to having a conversation with 'Lucy' so quickly Erina felt like her presence had been forgotten. That was only her mind being paranoid, but she couldn't help it from running through. She twisted her head around and looked back to see Ifalna fast asleep, she knew that if the kid decided to talk to her again she wouldn't be able to get out of it, only her mother would be able to stop her from bothering her. Not like she saw the girl as bothering; she just simply wasn't in a mood to chat.

"Hey Eri?" The pre-teen's eyes snapped back to the girl when she called her that. It wasn't the first time she had shortened her name – she thought nothing of it – but during that moment her mind had decided to remind her that that was what her adoptive mother had always called her. Now that she was stuck thinking about it hearing it come from Aerith's mouth felt strange.

"Yes?" she remembered to reply.

"Are we sisters?" She inquired innocently, bright emerald eyes shining.

"What?" Erina let out a chuckle made up of confusion and shock. That was an odd one, even with all the questions kids make, that was odd.

"Do I look like I would be?" Jeez they didn't have any resemblance or nothing; surely she knew they weren't related anyway considering they only just met a short time ago. Wait was she literally meaning it or not?

The girl didn't voice an answer or reply and instead shrugged. Erina really needed to remind herself that it was a five year old she was speaking to, she could barely speak plus her life wasn't considered even close to the norm. The amount of things she should know but didn't would be higher than the average.

"I'm not, okay?" Erina answered her properly, knowing it to be the only thing that could rid this topic from her mind.

She waited for a response from Aerith, to know that she wouldn't continue this; she got one, but it wasn't one she was waiting for.

"Do you want to be?" She enquired ever so cutely; her eyes were almost begging.

"It's not that simple." She tried to ignore the disappointed look she got back. Was it wrong that even an expression such as that seemed cute to her coming from the little girl?

Thanks to that conversation, she couldn't help a mental sigh.

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><p>Erina awoke early in the morning to a clanging noise against the door; she opened her eyes to a room covered in a layer of darkness. The sun was yet to rise to the height of the window and until it did she would be stuck in the middle of the blackness. She allowed a minute for her eyes to adjust; Aerith was sleeping soundly by her side curled up into a ball with the angel doll held loosely in her hands. Her mother was as well asleep in the bed diagonal to their position. That noise was coming from the outside; her ears could pick up on that even when it managed to echo all around the cell. It was obnoxious to say the least, and now that her eyes were seeing clearer she'd be able to spot the culprit. It wasn't hard to guess, the same person did that every time; it just simply hadn't been done so early before and not in the past two months whilst she'd been healing.<p>

The last time she looked out she'd been greeted by a pair of eyes she didn't know, ones she was still left clueless about; but these were a pair she'd become accustomed with. Soft hazel ones that were always trying to fake some kind of boredom, but she could see through it.

"Go away, Girly." Erina muttered mock angrily, she wasn't in a bad mood, she just hoped that pretending to be would make him go away.

"Oh how nice, haven't heard your voice in two months and that's what I get. Just wonderful." Yoshioka replied back with sarcasm lacing his tone. Like usual.

"I'm tired okay, go away." She commanded to what she knew was to no avail.

"And what if I don't want to?" Was his rather immature reply; he was again another person that made Erina feel like she was the older one, but he was at least three years older than Jessica and her band of idiots, and they already had seven years on her.

She pushed herself up and walked to the door, not so much because of his presence but more from curiosity of what on Gaia was that tapping sound. Erina knew that he was making it, but not how. She paused in front and squinted her eyes, to see better through the small barred area of the steel door. All she could see through it was his face and neck; he cracked a sly grin, noticing what she was attempting.

"I have keys."

"And you're hitting it against a door?" She rolled her eyes. "It's annoying and not funny so stop it before you wake anyone up or I swear I will find a way to hit you through a door."

Erina received a look of mock shock and hurt, he made it convincing but performing it in such a melodramatic way as he was made the truth of it clear.

"Oh how mean, you'll kill the door in the attempts." He pronounced it in a jokingly superior accent. "Aren't you more concerned about how I got them or why?" He asked, he sounded sarcastic, but that could just be him being usual idiot self, he really was expecting the questions.

"No." she replied without much thought, "I can tell why you have them anyway, and frankly I don't care; I'm tired and want to sleep, leave me alone." Erina commanded but was made to feel like she was being completely and utterly ignored as he went on to answer the other half of the question she hadn't put mention to.

"I stole them."

"I.."

"From the guard."

"I don't…"

"Like a ninja."

"Shut up."

"He didn't even realise there was someone else in the room."

Erina banged her head against the door hoping it'd drown him out, but it just made him keep on going.

"It was awesome."

Bang!

"Like really awesome!" He laughed near evilly.

Bang!

"Wow I feel awesome now."

She pulled her head away and gave him a glare.

"Leave me alone you moronic bastard or I really will go ahead with my plan to kill you through a door."

Yoshioka stopped the words coming out halfway there, his mouth was agape but no sound was released.

"You know what I think I'm going to risk that." He shrugged his shoulders with his usual stupid expression back to being present. "You're coming with me."

"No I'm not." She ordered. But of course that went ignored and she heard the unmistakable sound of a key twisting in the lock.

"Go away." She growled.

"Well maybe I don't want to." He pulled the door open wide and forced her out, covering her mouth with his hands to stop her complaints from being heard. If anyone was to find him taking her out, he'd be in shit for sure; he wasn't going to chance it.

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><p>Erina at first suspected Yoshioka had it in his head to go out the building, so she was surprised when he stopped approximately half way down the building. They were at the staircases at the back, it was deserted thanks to the fact that they weren't ever used unless a fire was going on and the elevators were made inaccessible. It was rare employees did choose to use them otherwise, so it made for a good place to hide. She was sitting at the top of a bunch whilst he stood leaning against a railing around halfway down the same lot. They were quiet for a minute or so, she didn't even know why he'd decided to talk to her so she wouldn't bother unless he did first.<p>

Erina rested a hand on her cheek with her legs crossed, it was a bad position in a skirt but she managed to keep enough of her legs covered so he wouldn't be seeing anything he shouldn't. She looked up to him with an expecting look, waiting for him to do something, anything really.

Yoshioka was bizarre, very bizarre. He was a man that was always trying to act nonchalant, when inside he might as well be ready to explode. She knew that partly because of her god-forsaken visions and how good she could read people. Whatever was going on on the outside the feelings showing in his eyes was opposite. He acted calm in situations where others would flip out, except when she was involved, he never managed it with her; she thought he might view her in strange way and so that was what made it harder for him to keep calm with her. Erina put ahead the proof that no matter what way he would act to others, he felt just like everyone else would in a bad situation. And some people are assured that Turks are heartless and without emotions. Stupid.

"Right!" He said suddenly and jumped forward off the rail landing with one foot on the step in the middle and the other on the lower. He had a near excited aura about him, a great change from a second ago when it was like for that moment his emotions had left him.

Erina lifted an eyebrow in wonder of what had gotten him like this.

"Are you just being stupid again?" She monotonously questioned, hiding the curiosity from her voice. She refused to let him know he had gotten her into a curious mood, he'd never let her live it down. He was idiotic like that.

"Maybe, maybe not." He chuckled, Erina had meant it as an insult but he'd decided not to care; she was constantly doing that to everybody.

"But who cares, I'm going to make you talk." He twisted towards her on the ball of his foot, a stupid thing to do on a staircase but he pulled it off fine. He pointed a finger at her, excited for no proper reason.

"Yeah, I think I'm going to go mute on you." Erina half replied back in a determined tone, she was more thinking aloud in order in insult him further.

His face showed disappointment before the moron decided she wouldn't fall for his fake emotions and he turned it back to that same obnoxious one filled with excitement.

"I'm going to keep you here until you speak." He announced confidently and she didn't doubt him on that.

"Well then it looks like you're going to be here for a while, what on earth do you want from me anyway…"

"To talk." Yoshioka cut her off before she could finish.

"I realise that," She glared annoyed. What a moron. "But about what?"

Erina didn't trust the smile that Yoshioka sent her as he took a step up to her. Then as he stood upon the step below the one her feet rested on, he gave a simple shrug of his shoulders.

"Oh maybe all those 'fun' things I've been hearing about you lately; quite curious if it's true or not." He grinned a grin that magically managed to both make itself look innocent yet evil. His tone had been absolutely dripping with sarcasm.

"Because it totally would be fun now wouldn't it?" Erina rolled her eye and shifted the position of her legs so that the left one was resting upon the right this time. She found that when she kept her legs crossed for far too long the one on the bottom would slowly start to feel numb around the thigh area. Her tone for lack of a better word, sounded bitchy. It was partway an act, partway what she really felt. Something about him reminded her of that retard Rhapsody, and that made her hate him. At least he could calm down, Rhap never had near her.

"Do you want to know what this fun thing is?" Yoshioka spoke like he was teasing a child with the chance of candy; it merited nothing but another roll of Erina's eyes. Bastard was treating her like a kid again. Screw the 10 year age gap; she wasn't like those immature morons.

Erina looked up to him with a flickering anger present in her chocolate orbs. Would saying yes make him leave? Not likely, but it would be better than doing nothing…or worse than doing nothing, he was sometimes hard to predict even for her.

He leaned down with a smirk she regarded as sinister. Was it just her or did the temperature just drop?

"Well maybe one of those creepy lab coat guys (He refused to use the word scientist) decided to tell me that a certain young black haired girl's mother was married to Hojo." His smirk widened to cover the whole width of his face.

He didn't need a verbal answer to know what he'd said to her was correct; her reaction was exactly what he was aiming for. Erina stiffened up, after straightening up like a board of wood. He swore her breathing stopped for a second as well, the look she'd sent him looked almost hurt. A pain lingered behind her bright eyes, like he'd just given her a horrible, horrible insult. To her it may as well be, she didn't like people knowing anything about her, and that wasn't a thing anyone he knew would like others to know.

Erina's mouth felt like it been wired shut, she couldn't talk at all; even breathing was hard to do. Who on earth had told him? Why did they know it?

"Don't worry too much about it, it's not like I'm going to go about telling everybody." Yoshioka moved to the railing and rested his crossed arms over it leaning. As he did so he muttered quietly, though loud enough for her to hear, 'Why would I?'

Yoshioka looked back to her than turned forward again and lifted up his head taking in the details of the humongous staircase above him. The silence was definitely what he'd call awkward; his own fault of course.

"I don't even remember what he said her name was if you're curious about that. Lu- something or other…" He paused and looked back to her seeing she was in the same state. Jeez he regretted even saying it now; Erina had a real problem with that man. Why would she want to be reminded of that fact? Wait, he began thinking to himself, not like he knew any kind of details, but if her mother had been married to him didn't that make him her step-father? The thought made him sick, what he was doing to the kid was inhumane.

Yoshioka twisted around to be looking at her this time, he opened his mouth to speak but stopped when he noticed her open her mouth and mutter a word under her breath.

"What?" Was all he could think of saying, took her long enough.

Erina glanced up changing her gaze from downwards. She swallowed a lump in her throat and spoke loud and clear for him to make out,

"Lucrecia. That's her name." She was struggling to get it out, she was truly forcing the words out; it looked like it pained her just having to say it.

"Your mother's you mean?" Yoshioka asked, he knew the answer, but he said it anyway like it was possible he heard it wrong. That didn't even make sense.

Shakily Erina nodded, and as she did another thought found its way inside his head. From the way the man who'd given this knowledge had originally said it, he found himself thinking it in a certain way. Maybe he only did that because it made it seem not as bad, but what if he was wrong? He needed to know that much.

"Hey, Ara?" He stuttered over the fake name she'd given him two months back. She thought that even to him it didn't sound right. Erina glanced up, with that same hurt expression but said nothing.

"Is he…is Hojo...really your Fa-" He didn't get to finish. A hand found its way to him and he found himself pushed back from the force as she slapped him hard on the cheek. Instinctively he grabbed onto the faded red paling before he tripped over down the stairs. What a wonderful one way ticket to having your head cracked open.

His breath was rushed from the sudden shock and quick save, he really could've ended up messed up if the rails had not been in his reach. Glancing up to Erina he could see that she was standing now. She looked nothing like that scared and hurt girl sitting cross-legged on the stairs only seconds ago. She was angry. Boy was she angry.

"How dare you!" She screamed at the top of her voice and didn't let her voice drop any for the rest.

"How can you say that!? How can you actually think that a fucking monster like him could be my..!" Her voice halted, she was so disgusted by it she couldn't even finish the thought. She was frozen for a second; she stepped back, her mind raced for what to say but one half refused to give her one. Whilst Erina did this a shocked expression was present before she snapped again and settled for an angry one. She slapped him in the face again, giving him a good look of her fiery eyes.

"My father is a better man than that bastard could even dream to be! How dare you think that it's that hideous bastard!?" Her breathing came in sharp low breaths, she was angry, it'd just taken over her. Erina didn't even believe she could place all the blame on what Yoshioka idiotically said. She just wanted to yell, to let it all out.

She stepped backwards up the stairs to the only flat ground in sight, around the bend another set of stairs began leading to the next level; behind her was a cold steel door.

Yoshioka was rubbing the red mark she'd left on his cheek; she guessed from the look on his face he didn't blame her for her angry reaction. He would have done the same in her situation. That didn't stop it from hurting.

Yoshioka tried to say something but it came out in an impossible to understand jumble. He shook his head and cleared his throat; he mind was having obvious trouble to keep up so she waited with an expectant expression. Erina wanted to be yelled at from that, she deserved it, she knew she did.

"So she cheated I take it?" He chuckled. She resisted the urge to hit him again. He saw it as an insult to the man they shared a deep hatred for, but she didn't think the word fit to be true.

"It's complicated." Erina took another step back, she didn't know why. But she didn't want to be here anymore.

"How so?" Yoshioka inquired, curious to a degree, but it wasn't his business.

"You don't need to know, I don't even want to." Erina turned around so she wouldn't have to look at him. Was there a point? She'd still have to talk, she couldn't leave.

"What are you doing?" He'd caught onto her strange behaviour earlier but decided to let her keep it up instead of attacking it with questions; at least at first.

"I don't know." She openly admitted. He made no reply, sensing she'd gone into a mood again. She'd replied emotionlessly, it just sounded so…empty.

"You don't know?" Yoshioka repeated as a question to her. He shouldn't have, he decided, but he found that was too late.

Something had snapped inside Erina's mind, nothing that would have made her angry, nothing like that at all. She sounded afraid. Looking at her you could tell she was scared, but scared of what? He didn't know, she probably didn't either.

"I want to leave." Erina mumbled, Yoshioka nodded slowly, not that she could see.

"Leave? To where? You have nowhere to go, you know." Telling her that was going to do nothing but make it worse, he understood that well, but something forced him not to stop.

"I don't know, could you leave?" That last part sounded delirious. It was at that point he knew that this needed to end before he made her snap again, her mind wouldn't be able to take it. Why couldn't he stop himself? He felt like some kind of phantom had taken him over, he couldn't stop the words from leaving his mouth.

"If I leave, what are you going to do? They'll find you down here sooner or later, they'll take you back. Hell they might beat you again." Yoshioka was being brutally honest with her. He wasn't usually like this with her; he tried to be nicer, to dance around the truth instead of diving into it. She was young, she didn't deserve it.

"Shut up!" Erina screeched, Yoshioka gave a startled jump back, lucky to keep his footing.

The pre-teen lifted up her hands and grabbed onto the strands of her hair, close to the roots, he heard the unmistakable sound of crying. He would have misread her as sad, but her screaming proved that thought wrong. She was angry, maybe distraught somewhere inside, but definitely angry.

"Just shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!" Erina breathed in deeply. "I don't want to hear it alright? Just shut up before I fucking kill you!" She began to sob louder, a shaky hand covered her mouth, and the other continued to run itself through her greasy black locks.

"I don't have anywhere to go; I don't even have anyone who cares!" She screamed through the tears running down her face.

It all felt like a weight pushing her down, choking her until it all went black. She could barely understand, all she knew was that she was in pain. Her heart felt like it was being ripped to shreds. Her legs buckled with a weight her mind made up, and she landed harshly on the steel ground, scraping her knees against it.

"I have nothing! Am I pitiful? Do you think that? That I'm just some pitiful little kid? Is that why you want to help me? Treating me like a stupid fucking charity case!?" The last part was said so loud Erina killed her throat. She'd make it hoarse if she kept it up.

Yoshioka could only look on, stunned as she had a complete breakdown; he hadn't meant to send her like that at all. He'd only wanted to talk; it was about a lot of things really. Like how he knew she was getting 'Ara' from 1181, the name given to her from the scientists. A and R were the 1 and 18 letter in the alphabet, she must have been pretty damn bored to have figured it out like she had. But that was a thought for another time.

He sat besides Erina's crying form; she was so small in comparison. She probably even took insult by it, he was small for a man himself; it must make her feel like a real child.

"Ara?" She didn't make a response to say she'd notice him sit beside her. With nothing else in his mind, though it may startle her with her being in this mood, Yoshioka suddenly pulled her into a sympathetic hug.

She didn't even flinch, even in his grasp; she still showed no sign to say she'd noticed he was there.

Truth be told her mind had left the building, in the closest way possible. She detested her situation beyond reason, she wanted to escape, but she couldn't any more. No one could, not from ShinRa.

So Erinathrew herself in a memory to try and help herself. It was a very simple little memory, from when she was seven. She'd only just met Rhapsody and the rest of the stupid lot. They'd been in Banora, it was the first place she'd gone to after she'd left her own town, they liked it there, she didn't know why. Jessica kept talking about Dumbapples, they were those funny white trees. The whole town was calling them that, it wasn't really their name; they were just messing with her. Apparently the apples from them were really delicious, absolutely fantastically delicious as Jess had put it. She really liked them, so Erina gave into her and decided to try one. They'd been one of them trees in the front yard of a house, she took it from there. It was the biggest tree in sight, so she had to climb up it. When she got down with what she thought looked like the best juiciest one, she was about to eat it until someone called out to her. He said she shouldn't eat it because that'd be stealing. Erina thought it was stupid, he'd taken one from another tree earlier; she'd seen him do it. So to be annoying, she took a big chunk of a bite out of it. His reaction was funny, but her memories had abandoned the sight long ago. She couldn't even remember the boy's face anymore.

Even when Erina had gone out of her way to be annoying, she kinda liked him. She hadn't been in the town for long, but he seemed nice. So different from her, and she liked that. The difference was a huge gap, and so whenever she tried to think back to the memory that begged to disappear, she was always made to think of angels.

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><p><strong>Did I mention Erina's obbsession with angels yet? I don't know. But yes, she loves angels. Because she views herself as a demon, and angels are the opposite to that.<strong>

**She is a ball of insecurities. **

**Reviews would be nice for once, haven't gotten one yet. Just want to know what you think, jya ne.**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	8. experiment

**(4,824 words) Sorry to my few readers, for the second time my beta has had trouble getting this back to me. I don't know how well it was edited and even though I went through and double checked it it still probably is full of mistakes.**

**Sigh, I love Erina, I really this this was more popular.**

**this is slowly going to start to get less OC ridden, if anyone can help me I'd appreciate it.**

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><p><strong>Wings of regret chapter 8: Experiments<strong>

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><p>The sound of a creaking door awakened Erina from her sleep. Slits of light crept in and stung her eyes. She quickly shut her eyes and waited before opening them a crack, and waiting until the room was no longer a white blur that left a stinging pain at the back of her head. Slowly she opened them wider to see a man standing by the doorway. She guessed from his grey garb and gun at his belt that he was a guard, but she hadn't seen him once yet.<p>

She could see out the window the sun was yet to rise, but the sky had turned a deep blue. The best estimate would be to say it was six in the morning. The man in the doorway was silent, eyeing her strangely.

He had to be new, she thought. Since she'd been here three guards had quit, and the new one always reacted in such a way upon first seeing her. After all, this area of the building was commonly used as a prison for criminals; seeing a child was a hint that maybe ShinRa wasn't all it claimed to be. It was obvious this man was suspicious.

Erina picked herself up; black hair slipped off her shoulders and cascaded down her back. The floor had left pain in her shoulders and lower back, but she hardly cared. Her fingers still hurt from when she'd whacked a steel wall last time she'd been out of the cell, and two of them remained swollen. She returned his look of wary curiosity; he wasn't young, nearing middle age. His head was bald and he had greyish black stubble. Large purple patches were under his eyes and Erina had the thoughts that he must never get enough sleep; he looked in worse condition then her and she slept on the ground each night.

There was only one reason guards came to collect her. Half the time even they didn't know what they were being ordered to do, not in any great detail. But she knew what was coming for her in the near future. Two swollen fingers weren't going to stop Hojo from his little toy any longer.

He swallowed a lump in his throat, his silence until now was the fault of a mix of confusion and shock; for he mustn't have been told how young the girl he was coming to collect was.

"I've been told to collect you," a shaky voice informed her.

Erin pulled herself into a ball; she nodded knowing this was not something she could get out of, but fearing it. It hurt, that bastard always kept his experiments awake, like he wanted to torture them as well for no reason at all. Personally she felt he did so with her as punishment for disobedience.

The guard walked in the door, with gradual steps. He was going to do as he'd been told, but going off what she could see he had a conscience, and had disagreements with whatever was going to happen to her when she was out of his sights.

Erina pulled back when he knelt to grab her hand. She tried to put on an angry face but with knowledge this man was clearly acting on orders, she couldn't muster it and ended up looking as if she was sulking.

"Come on, don't start that," he growled in a deep voice, surer of himself as compared to before and slightly annoyed.

She lashed out with her foot, but he dodged and took his chance for the half a second she was unguarded to grasp her wrist.

"Hey!" Erina howled and struggled to release his grip, but the reason he had been placed as a guard here now made obvious as all her attempts were to no avail. All she ended up with was a reddened wrist and a sore shoulder. The man kicked her feet which she had been using to keep herself steady and she tripped and fell on her behind. She had no time to worry about the pain as she was being hauled up and dragged away faster than she could think.

Erina decided if she was going to do anything, it would be being stubborn. She leaned backwards so he now had to fight against all her weight. She noted how fast he had gone from unsure to pissed, but her mind disregarded anything bad that could come of it. The part of him that had originally been appalled by her young age had been overcome quickly by his urge to listen to orders so now she had no sympathy from him whatsoever and became nothing but an annoying little kid.

Seeing as she was already being regarded as annoying, she had no problem with becoming more so. When he got to the door, she latched onto the door with her remaining arm, one leg stayed on the outside for balance while the other assisted her hand by hanging on to the wall inside the cell. The man behind her grunted and tugged sharply. Immediately fiery pain erupted in her shoulder and upper leg, but she bit her lip and tried to ignore it. It was little more than a second, but as the guard's annoyance increased his hold on her slackened so she took it to pull herself closer to the door, for a better grip.

Again he grunted and pulled again; she held tighter, cutting into her lip as she tried to ignore the pain.

"Look I don't know what those guys need you for but this is getting stupid!" He yelled and attempted again at prying her away.

"Exactly," she spat. "You don't know; if anything I'm under-reacting!" She swiped at him with her foot, he stepped back to avoid the kick but she got exactly what she'd wanted because he had needed to loosen his grasp to do so and as he hadn't noticed yet, she ripped her arm from his grip and made a run for it.

Erina felt him stretch out for her but all he managed to do before she was out of reach was touch the ends of her hair. He was yelling at her to stop and come back, but with a tiny chuckle escaping from her lips she rounded a corner and was out of his sights. The loud clanking sound of boots on metal was a sure sign he had gone after her, but the distance was already too great and widening as her pace increased.

Sure she was weak, but her speed was on a completely different level. There was a reason Rhapsody and his stupid group had called her a 'human rocket'.

When Erina could be sure she had lost him, she slowed to a stop. She huffed in exhaustion, she wasn't the healthiest; just because she had speed didn't mean she could keep it up for a prolonged amount of time. She moved stray strands of black hair from her face, wiping away the sweat as well.

She had no idea where she was, she had gone too fast to fully take in all the turns. The set up was similar to where she had left; it was still cells that lined the walls; only hopefully now she was further away from the labs. She was sick of Hojo and all those other bastards, a given that all her injuries were better, she still felt like shit because of having to constantly sleep on the floor. And she knew it was going to make the experiments worse; they hurt like all bloody hell just by themselves.

Erina begun at a steady pace, taking a good look of her current surroundings, that windows lined the walls was what her eyes took to noticing first. The line of cells she was locked up in had none besides the tiny barred ones in the cells themselves, and they offered near to no light, they were only something to help tell the time with.

The cell's locks appeared less complicated, and the entire cell looked to be of a different type of metal, one which she predicted was weaker. It made sense; she was someone ShinRa wanted to keep, so she'd be locked up in a more secure area. It was probably also for the extra violent criminals that got imprisoned here. Truthfully so few were ever guilty here, half the time they happened to be a part of an anti-ShinRa group.

Erina stopped, as her thoughts caught up to her. _'Someone ShinRa wanted to keep?'_

Was she really? She doubted that. Practically the entire of the company was oblivious to the sick doings of the science department, they'd have no idea she was here at all. The President could easily prefer her dead, her rebellious habits had gotten Hojo into a bad mood plenty of times, and he'd be the one who'd have to deal with it. Even to Hojo she was nothing more than a side-project, like a toy he could use to pass the time because he had nothing better to do. She was a spare; it didn't matter, she wasn't needed.

Erina shook her head violently to shake it out of her head. She was sick of those thoughts. Spare? She wasn't some tool, she was a person! Wasn't she?

She bit down on her lip and began her stride to find and exit. Nobody gave a damn about her existence at all, she should just be allowed to leave, what point did her staying here have?

She passed a door leading to another hallway, but decided against going down that way, last time she had attempted escaping the building by herself, that was where she had gotten herself caught. It was about now Erina wished she hadn't run so fast and lost track of where she was, if she'd cared to notice she could've used Yoshioka's path: he knew where the staircases were. She followed a similar pattern for close to 20 minutes. She only chose the hallways that had an open door, not a closed one where someone could be hiding behind. She spent a minute listening to the littlest of sounds just to know no one was there. It was paranoid habits that were helping her in this situation. She doubted she'd make it this time around, but she was going to keep away from the labs for as long as she could.

Erina stopped when she reached the end of one particular hallway; she had checked every path beforehand, so she had nowhere else to go. And now all she had was one closed-door, leading to a room or hallway she'd never entered before. She quietly growled to herself, and dug her nails into her skin in frustration.

"Damn it!" Erina screeched and kicked the metal door. She regretted it once her toes flared up in pain. "God everything must hate me," she muttered angrily as she sat down on the floor ad nursed her toes, it'd been even worse on account of her being barefoot.

She only heard the footsteps at the last moment before a pair of long arms wrapped around her and a wicked voice snickered in her ear, "Goodnight kiddo, you're not putting up a fight this time. " before he brought up his hand and covered her mouth with a rag doused in chloroform. She tried to fight but soon the liquid did its job and she lost consciousness.

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When she awoke she found herself strapped to a stretcher by thick brown ropes tied to her wrists, ankles and across her stomach. They were tied tight and came close to stopping the blood flow to her hands and feet. A group of men were walking around her, no matter how close they stood her eyes failed to register their face, she was too groggy to see straight. Erina tugged against the restraints weakly, they burned her skin and only caused more pain. It came like a wave over her, she suspected she'd been injected with a drug, the pain was way worse than it should've been and the passing of time didn't help to bring her sight back.

She attempted to concentrate and make out something that was familiar. From the amount of white she could make out, she was definitely surrounded by scientists. And going from that it made sense she was in a lab. But her eyes wouldn't allow her to see right, her environment appeared blurry and distorted, the difference between shadows and light were exaggerated to an extreme. The room and people turned into blackish-greenish blurs while the lab coats and screens were blindingly white.

Every now and then she felt a stinging sensation in either forearm, but her mind was moving too slow to figure out what could be happening, when it caught up the sensation would stop. It could be someone injected her with some easily unsafe substance, or taking a vial of her blood. She was injected with hundreds of different chemicals; she'd never think to say her blood was normal.

How she managed to stay healthy like this, was beyond her. Of course, she was 'special' enough to be able to stay fine to a degree, but by now, she truly felt she had passed that degree. Given that she was nothing more than a spare, she knew Hojo wouldn't give a crap if she died; she was only an experiment after all. He might be disappointed when he finally reached the limit her body could go, but beyond that he'd feel nothing.

What he was doing to her, she had no idea; she didn't want to know. To her it was a bunch of psychopaths having some fun with the pitiful little victim that was her. If someone was to find out about her existence here, if they were sane, they'd feel sick and maybe would want to stop experiments like this from happening, but they'd be powerless to stop a thing. To her, almost everyone working for ShinRa had a bad point, and for the majority, that was insanity.

It was simply kept under wraps so the illusion that ShinRa isn't bad could be kept up. The psychos were obsessed with the image they were trying so hard to uphold. She'd love to break it. If only she knew how.

When the stinging stopped in her arms, her ears took to noticing the beeping sounds all around the room, and the clicking sound made from typing. Sometimes she was so tempted to know what was happening, but common sense warned her it wasn't worth it.

Nothing made sense in this world.

A sharp object was jabbed into her arm, and before she knew it, sweet darkness enveloped her once again.

This time she awoke in a tube of mako, her eyes instantly began to sting, but she refused to close them and let the people around her get the satisfaction she was in pain. There was plenty who'd love to hurt her. She was just a stupid bitch.

Whatever had been in her system, had left. Her sight was as good as it was going to get, and the world didn't feel to her as if was in slow motion. She caught a number of faces watching her, only a few she recognised. Still knowing full well who they were, she really didn't want to express pain at all right now.

The bastard whose fault this was stood in front of the tank, inspecting her, He ordered one of the many cowering scientists now and then, an order she was deaf to. But most the time, his eyes never left the tank. She made sure to deliver him one hell of a death stare. It'd be better, if he didn't smile in return. He mocked her.

Having no way to tell the time, she had no remote idea how long she floated in the mako, over an hour for sure. She ached all over, but she'd have no chance of freedom of the torture. The green liquid drained slowly out of the tank, bringing her down with it. She landed as a bundle on the ground, as her legs caved in on her. She'd floated for so long; her limbs had lost all feeling and had gone numb. She sucked up the air hungrily, thankful to not be surrounded by that disgusting liquid any longer. Sadly, the tube stank of the mako, the scent reminiscent of trees and grass that she'd long ago learned to hate.

The tube opened before Erina regained feeling and a pair of rough hands hauled her out. The man holding her up held her centimetres too high for her feet to touch, yet still, absent-mindedly her feet tried to kick the ground, trying to walk. She felt so tired she for the second time today was out of her head. She felt like she had cried for hours, her eyes were reddened and her head pounded.

Before she was led out of the room, she swore she heard one of the assistants snigger at her pitiful form. Outside the man holding her up dropped her and threw her to the ground.

"Can you even feel anything?" A familiar voice spat.

Erina stiffened up when she realised this man was Danic, the same one who had attempted to rape her last time she showed any rebellious attitude.

He kicked her leg, it hurt but she was stubborn enough to make him think she was still numb.

"Jeez, if you're like that I can't finish what I started last time." He complained, "it won't be fun."

He walked around her, stopping at her front. He kneeled down, with his height he still appeared as a towering monster. She glared venomously at him.

"What does he want with a bitch like you anyway? The only fun thing to do is use you as a punching bag or fuck ya." He sighed and leaned backwards. Stupidly he came extremely close to falling backwards but he hastily caught himself and stood back up and tried to act like it hadn't happened. This time when he walked around her he stopped at her stomach. He was frozen and mute for a full minute; Erina was becoming more paranoid by the second, till suddenly he slammed his foot into her stomach.

She coughed and wheezed as her torso erupted into agony. Danic began laughing. "Hah! Stupid bitch, take that." he cackled, and kicked her again.

This time she was cast into a fit of coughs that left a stinging pain in the bottom of her throat. His laughter got louder.

"Fuck you, ass wipe!" He went for another kick but a mere second before it hit Erina jumped up and ran for it, ignoring that because how badly winded she was she could hardly breathe.

Behind her Danic swore his damn head off, giving her death threats and the like. Pretending to be numb worked out perfectly.

_**REVIEWREVIEWREVIEWREVIEWREVI EWREVIEWREVIEWREVIEWREVIEWRE VIEWREVIEWREVIEWREVIEWREVIEW REVIEWREVIEWREVIEWREVIEW**_

Erina took a different path to the one before, it was reckless but she doubted she'd be caught easily by taking a path they'd least suspect her of choosing. After five minutes she hoped she had gained a good enough distance, and took a break to catch her breath. Running at full speed while winded was agony.

When she was fine, she begun again, walking at a leisurely pace whilst trying to figure out where to head. She didn't know this building well enough to freely walk around it, and even if she did she still had the science department after her. Sure most of them didn't truly care about her, but they in no way wanted to deal with a pissed off Hojo that'd lost one of his precious experiments.

Her paranoid mind picked up the slightest of sounds, and she regretted that again she had missed the entrance to the stair case, the one she couldn't even remotely remember where it was. If she managed to, she wouldn't head in its direction, it was too late now, if people were after her going back is exactly what would lead her to them.

When the floor behind her started creaking she panicked and ran, only to realise when she'd reached a corner; that no one was there. She inwardly sighed. Paranoid was right. She let go of the wall she had hidden behind and sped down the hallway, her pace wasn't constant and at times so she could continue moving she slowed down to a jog, only to return to her former speed the moment she thought she'd heard footsteps.

Erina stopped by a door; drops of sweat fell from her forehead, and fell on the ground leaving wet patches. Seeing it made her think a somewhat peculiar thought; considering her face was burning at the moment, she wanted to go jump out into the rain and let it pour down on her. Most people hated getting so wet and being so cold, but she had always loved it. Right now that was what she wanted the most.

A minute went past and her condition eased. She was going to run off again and find an exit, until she inspected the words on the door to her left. Which just so happened to say in great big bold white letters 'STAIRCASE'.

"Oh I found the freaking staircase." She sighed in relief, wiping off the remaining sweat from her face. For a second she smiled but a sudden feeling of annoyance hit her and instead she kicked the door hard with the foot she had already injured today. She frowned but couldn't be bothered to care about the pain.

"'Bout bloody time." She gripped the handle and ripped it open. It smashed the wall and made a 'bang' so loud there was no way no-one else could not have heard it. Knowing this she quickly entered, shutting the door behind her, lighter this time.

The staircase was dark but her eyes were quick to adjust. She descended at a brisk pace, not at full speed as she had enough common sense to know that tripping and falling here would hurt like all bloody hell. Erina was close to the bottom floor when she heard a door up above open. She stepped over to the railings and leaned over, checking who was there, and sure enough, back up at the level she'd entered from, was the guard from this morning.

"Hey, there she is!" Another unfamiliar voice cried out, she couldn't see them but instantly sprinted out of sight. Fearing she wouldn't reach the ground floor in time she took her exit from the door on her current level.

She shut the door with a slam and ran like she'd die if they caught her. She found herself in an alien place and out of being paranoid, hid from every person she saw. She followed this for what felt like an eternity, but truthfully, from what she could figure from clocks, it had been only an hour so far.

She had gotten herself well and truly lost, and as much as this bothered her, it was even worse when she ran into someone. She'd run into him hard enough to trip and fall backwards, he was unstable but regained his balance with ease. Erina nursed the elbow she'd landed on, scowling.

"Hey are you alright?" A kind voice asked her with concern.

Her eyes snapped up to him, unaccustomed to hearing that kind of tone from men. He was younger than she'd expected, still a good two heads taller, but definitely young. His hair was jet black, and his eyes a bright blue. She was stuck staring for the longest time, not for how he looked, but how he was looking at her. He was actually worried?

"Y…yeah." She stuttered, too shocked to form a sentence.

Of course he'd be worried, her elbow was bleeding from the fall and she was a sweaty mess. Her black hair clung to her cheeks and neck. Her clothes were dirty, and her top had a massive tear near the hem. And even despite all that, there had to be a reason for a girl her age to even be in this building.

"You don't look very well." He informed her, in her mind she agreed, but did say this out loud. The stranger held out a hand to help her up, Erina gladly took it.

When she stood up straight, it may have been her imagination, but he seemed to be shocked. Still she wasn't surprised by that, neither would have had to be looking right at each other if they'd bumped into each other, when she was on the ground thanks to her appearance he must have thought she was older. After all she didn't have a child's body, she was in no way flat chested, her body was already forming the curves of a woman. Only her height showed the truth of her age. She was small, very small.

"Hey, how old are you?" He asked, tilting his head curiously.

She put a finger to her lip and thought, she was increasingly losing track of passing days; she doubted she could give a correct answer.

"What month is it?" She asked, knowing it'd give her the answer.

As her adoptive parents hadn't the slightest clue of her exact age, they'd decided each New Year's they'd celebrate her birthday.

"Um, February, why?" His face was a picture of perfect confusion, well after all asking 'what month is it' doesn't sound right at all to anyone with their sanity intact.

"Oh!" Erina smiled happily and clasped her hands together. "I'm thirteen!" Then she paused, and frowned, looking at the ground like something in her head had finally clicked and she realised something was definitely wrong.

"Oh fuck I forgot everything for four months straight? Heh, new record." When she returned her eyes to him he was nothing less than shocked. She didn't initially realise what was wrong, until it occurred to her she'd sworn for no reason at all. She forgot most people aren't used to that.

To get off the subject she planted on a partially forced smile and asked, "So how old are you?"

He was silent as he struggled to overcome the stranger's oddities. "Fourteen."

"Oh wow you're younger than I thought; I was thinking sixteen or something like that." She put her hand on his forehead and measured the height difference. "I am such a midget."

He nodded, she was bizarre, but he did the decent thing and said nothing of it. He surprised her by saying,

"Have we met before?" He was talking in a serious tone. It had just hit him that her face was familiar.

Erina stared at him blankly, "Eh?"

Personally she found that weird that he thought that, she hadn't met him before. Or had she? His voice was awfully familiar. She dived into her memories, but brought up nothing but hundreds of blurred faces of people she'd met in another life.

"I have no bloody idea." She sighed and bit her lip in displeasure. She wouldn't have begun the thought if he hadn't said that, now that he had it bothered her to no end. She crossed her arms and thought.

"Oi" A voice of someone unknown called out from the distance. The boy who she was having an idiotic conversation with looked back, with a smile.

He turned his face back to her and with a faint grin he apologised, "Sorry I have to leave. Maybe if I see you again I can figure out why my mind is so sure I've seen you somewhere before."

She nodded in response just as he walked off.

When he was out of ear shot she said to herself,

"Why do I have a craving for apples?" She threw her head back and exhaled exaggeratedly, she was getting frustrated now.

Then it hit her. "Holy shit he's the kid that went off at me for stealing apples!" She yelled aloud, attracting a look. Immediately she hid behind the closest object.

Without her trying, Erina felt a smile tug at her lips. _I'll make sure to remember that face._

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><p><strong>I don't know what to do for the next chapter, help?<strong>

**My sister's best friend thinks Vincent is hot too, Nyan 3**

**I forgot what I was going to write but my sister wants me to go watch Sailor Moon with her so,**

**Jya ne**

_~Serah Villiers Valentine_


	9. Stalking

**I'm taking a month off fan fiction after my doctor worried about my obsessive habits I have with it, so this is the only chapter I'm writing this month because it will be better for my health. Plus the clicking noise the keyboard makes gives me a headache (Like everything is nowadays). I'm really weak so I'm hoping the iron supplements I'm taking will help me get better and that this is not something worse that when I find out what it is it's too late to do anything about it.**

**Please review this chapter, I know people are reading this. Stop being so heartless.**

**I hope you enjoy, even though I will never know any of your thoughts at all.**

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my precious Erina.

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><p><span>Wings of regret chapter 9: Stalking<span>

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><p>She watched as streams of light dangled from the window sill, reaching out to touch the wooden ground before her, and dancing on the tops of the many boxes to her sides. The early morning sun glinting in through the half-open window lit the room a light cream, brightening her pale white skin to a normal cream. Erina toyed with a strand of black hair fallen from her shoulder, eyes disconcentrated. She'd left and hidden in this room, tired and with a headache. She was in a storage room in the back of a café, the same one Yoshioka had brought her to a couple months ago, before she'd had the crap beat out of her by two of the lab assistants.<p>

Last night he had snuck up to her cell, deciding he wanted to do what he always did, take her out and hope he didn't get caught. The stupid man had ignored how many times she said she would have rathered to stay and sleep. She had been so tired when he was leading her down the stairway she'd tripped and cut her elbow. The teen eyed the injury with little interest or concern, the waitress here, who she knew as well was his elder sister had placed a band-aid on it when they'd arrived. She didn't bother to question at all why he had come in the middle of the night just as she was shutting up with a 13-year-old girl. It seemed seeing as she had a Turk for a brother she chose never to get surprised at anything he did or said, knowing full well there were far worse things he was doing then hanging out with a girl ten years his junior.

Yoshioka and her had gotten into a conversation a little after they'd arrived, so she'd chosen to have a nap on the miniature stage up front, seeing as she was so tired her head felt like it was splitting apart. They ignored her as the siblings had a little catch-up, his sister saying a ridiculously large amount more than him, not surprisingly when her little brother was a Turk. Erina's sleep wasn't much of a sleep, it was one of those moments where her visions decided it was way too tempting not to annoy the bloody crap out of her. She knew if she opened her eyes they would have turned that annoying green that she hated so much, and her pupils would be those stupid slits that had earned her the nickname 'snakey'. She knew of others with eyes like that, and though she may have a connection to them, she didn't understand why her eyes would specifically become like his when her visions assaulted her poor mind. But really thinking about it she didn't even understand why she had visions at all, knowing it wasn't in her family and the experiments had nothing to do with it.

The main reason she had stubbornly tried to escape Yoshioka was because she didn't want this headache. Everything had been so loud, even when she was more than aware the only people in the building besides her were two siblings having a catch up and the cafe's owner out the back chatting to a employee about to take their leave. She wasn't in the mood to deal with anything, one important thing she adored about her cell mates was not how kind they both were, but because she never had visions around them. No irritating little flashes, no headache inducing conversations that weren't happening at all, none of the stinging pain she associated with the times her abilities activated, nothing, zilch. She could try to force them, like she would when she really wanted to know something about someone or something, but still, it was just black. Brilliant, was the words to describe it. But of course it was them and that was it, Yoshioka wasn't one of the bad cases, she'd see a little flash every 3 or 5 minutes, but his sister was bad; every minute she'd have another vision and constantly she heard her inner monologue. People's thoughts, were rare for her to hear, she had visions, that was the limits her powers usually went to, but some people stretched that; his sister was one of them unfortunately. And though she heard her voice non-stop there was one thing she never heard, her name.

Yoshioka was still annoyed at the trick she'd tried to pull by tricking his big sister into thinking her name was Evangeline Yue. So was his sister apparently, luckily the girl had said nothing in her head about it really, just the wondering thought of 'what is her real name?', like most people. And from this supposed anger, the siblings refused to tell Erina what their names were until she told them her name. Taking into consideration that Yoshioka was a Turk, she doubted she'd get his name anyway, associating herself with his sister wasn't going to do a thing, because they were just as stupid as Rhapsody and his lot.

When she couldn't take it any more, she had left the room and had ended up in the back room she had slept in with Yoshioka last time. The floor was just as uncomfortable, just as cold, but for some stupid reason she didn't care. It was better than out in the main room despite the stage being considerably comfier. She'd woken in the early hours of the morning, creamy light attacking her weary eye lids. She'd forced her visions to work just so she could know she wasn't alone, to scan the building when she was too lazy to get out. When she came up with neither thought nor flash, she knew she was left completely alone in the café. So she waited, knowing Yoshioka wouldn't leave someone like her alone for too long, whether a person saw her as a child or stolen specimen either way you'd want to keep them in your sights.

Erina full of boredom gazed out the tiny window on the only wall that wasn't stacked to the roof with boxes full of plates, bowls, cutlery and decorations for the tables. Outside she could hear the cars of the people hurrying to get to work, the roar of their engines loud as the smell of petrol was carried in with the wind and assaulted her senses. The ground outside smelt salty like it does after rain covers concrete. The smell of petrol and salt mixed together to create what others must surely call dirty and disgusting, to Erina it was anything but. The smell was unnatural, a mix-up of man-made creations, the opposite of nature. She had nothing against nature, but it smelt disgusting; grass, trees, flowers, they smelt disgusting.

She guessed she had learned to hate it because of mako, the smell was the same.

Bored of her own thoughts, she scanned the building again, she received not a single vision a blaring against closed eyelids but a quiet voice could be heard when she concentrated, her abilities not needed to hear it. She disregarded it believing it wasn't anyone that knew she was here, only Yoshioka and his sister had any idea she had been in the building. Bored again of thinking about who knew and who didn't know she was here Erina began fiddling with a stray lock of her black hair which had slipped off her shoulder. She tangled it around her fingers, noting it was incredible greasy which made her wonder just how long had she gone without a shower? A good month or so she predicted, not like she had much a chance being locked up in that cell almost every hour of the day, being bathed in mako was not a replacement for a bath in water.

It was then that bucket of freezing water was poured on her head. She instantly flinched and turned around, flicking back her fringe which was long enough to cover her left eye when soaked as it was.

"If you need a shower I can take you back to my apartment, got a good one there." Yoshioka's sister informed her as she knelt down to pick up a taped box by the door, a blue bucket leaking thin streaks of water lying abandoned at her feet.

Erina scowled and toyed with the rest of her hair which had chosen to cling to her top uncomfortably. "Bitch I didn't even realise I said it out loud."

The other paused halfway done what she was doing to return the look. "Okay, note to self, I should take my brother more seriously when he says that someone has a 'colourful mouth on them' even if they're a kid like you." She shuffled the box to make it easier to hold, rolling her eyes with a sigh. "Kid's don't have any reason to be rude. That's adult stuff."

Erina sniggered and returned the eye roll mockingly. "Don't call me a kid you dumb bitch, I do have a fucking reason idiot. And I wouldn't call swearing 'adult stuff', maybe sex and beating the shit out of someone until they're half way to death, then you're getting there." She smiled with a mean glint in her eyes.

The older girl bit her lip and reached for the door knob, "Is there anything I can do to make you stop swearing then?"

"Tell me your name."

"Fat chance, tell me your's first I know it's not Evangelynn and it's not Ara either. Yoshi says you got it from something stupid so that's enough to know that's just as much a lie."

Erina hummed "Fuck that."

The other banged their head against the door in annoyance just before opening it and leaving. "You know my offers still up, you could do with a shower, you stink."

Again she hummed and the other got the answer before it left the teen's mouth. "Yeah fuck that too." She hopped up and dashed out the door, hitting the other purposely who dropped the box in her arms. Behind her Erina could hear whatever had been in there shatter but she didn't care enough to ask what it had been or even look back to see. She heard yelling, annoyed not yet angry, but cared nought just the same.

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><p>Erina strolled the streets of Midgar, by Midgar's standards this was probably what they'd call sunny, but all she could think about was how foggy it was. Growing up in country towns was a hell of a lot different to this, she wasn't used to the crowds or the bad weather. Being locked up in the cell for the amount of times she was made her unable to adjust to anything about Midgar. Thinking about the cell made her giggle over how she wasn't remotely allowed to be here at all. Yoshioka had to be freaking out with worry for her, last time she'd gotten out of his sights she'd gotten beaten half to death. Poor idiot, she barely cared he could worry or do whatever she didn't care about that either. People didn't need to bother worrying for her, she was worthless after all wouldn't it be better to die? sometimes she truly thought that, not quite remembering where she began to believe it. It didn't worry her that she couldn't remember, in her crappy life it could have been anything to set off those thoughts.<p>

she stopped at a road crossing, resting her back lazily against a pole. She observed the people walking by, disgusted by the happy way they acted. Below them people lived in poverty, and above them in the largest building in the city inhumane experiments were occurring day in and day out. One they knew one they did not,but even one was enough. Just to stop those thoughts from getting to her, so she didn't break the jaw of the next person to pass by her she made a game of tripping over all the teens and adult that walked by, being as discreet as she could. Yes, she sighed in her head, it still meant she was hurting people, but it could be much worse. After so many fights with lab assistants and guards, she'd figured out how to make a punch hurt even when she didn't have any incredible strength in her. She didn't trip the laughing joy filled children that made her just as sick with those annoyingly bright smile, but only because then they'd cry and pose a bigger annoyance.

There was only one child she could stand being near, and initially that was only because they were locked up in the same cell. But the little girl had grown on her even if she hated having to look her in the face because of those creepy green eyes she and her darling mother shared. Green was a disgusting colour.

Returning to reality a second before another boy crossed her foot, which she had out on front of her but hidden so well in the large crowd it wasn't as if anyone would notice, she realised that his face was familiar. Recognising him as the boy she had literally bumped into a week or so ago her foot jerked so it was in place with the other. It took her a second to even realise she'd done it and by then the lights had turned red and the pedestrians were crossing the street. And again with a movement she didn't understand, before she had a chance to think about it she was following after him, keeping a distance between them so he didn't notice. In her trance like state she also failed to notice the other boy with him. A boy she'd later be glad to keep away from.

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><p>Erina had no way to tell the time but she figured she had been following him for at least twenty minutes for her feet were beginning to get sore. She didn't have any shoes and though her feet were tough after walking about bare foot as many times as she had there was a limit to what she could take. She soon tired of trailing him, and from having no idea why she'd chosen to in the first place, climbed up and perched upon a statue on the side of the road. She sat on the stand and rested her back and left arm on a curve near the bottom of the statue itself. She rested her cheek on her palm and watched with little interest the crowd passing her by. She spotted the boy she'd followed going to buy something from a store, he said something to a brunette boy before going inside. It occurred to her that the boy had been with him the entire time, as she could clearly remember a brunette boy walking by his side almost every time she had gotten a clear view of the other boy. There was an air of familiarity about him but she couldn't place where she had seen him. Leaving it up to her mind being confusing she gave up and continued to eye the passing crowd.<p>

She only managed this for another minute as when it passed a foot hit her back and knocked her off the statue. As she fell she couldn't see the boy at her back swing around to her side of the statue and sit down, mimicking her former position exactly. Erina caught herself with her arms, scraping her elbows and lightly hitting her head on the concrete, giving herself a tiny scratch on her forehead. Quick to anger she furiously jumped up and twisted around to see a smirking brunette boy with a tinge of red in his hair and bright blue eyes.

"Just wondering what you were doing here." He smiled.

She scowled noting he was the other boy who had been with the one she was tailing. It dawned on her then exactly who he was, she had a clear memory of a certain boy back in Banora who without any knowledge of who she was decided to get on her nerves. What he'd done had never been bad seeing as the worst he'd done was an obnoxious memory where he had tried to kiss her and thanks to an injured ankle caused by that stupid Jessica he had easily succeeded.

Not caring for names she spoke before she could even begin to think, "Fuck off go die!"

His eyes went wide in shock for a second but he laughed it off with head in his hand. "Wow nice to see you still recognise me, don't remember you using that kind of language but anyway." He lifted his head back up and smiled the same smile he'd done when he first looked at her, her frown deepening.

"Have a day off, thought I might say hi." He joked

She rolled her eyes knowing he was speaking total shit because he would have had no idea she was here, but then her mind took notice of what he had said and she thought about it. She turned her eyes back to him and asked with quiet curiosity, her eyes randomly switching her gaze to her fingers which she nervously fiddled with.

"Day off? You work for ShinRa don't you?"

He cocked his head to the side, then realised what made her ask it. "Oh yeah, you did leave in Banora for a time didn't you? Probably heard about us wanting to work there didn't you?" He tilted his head so it was straight and continued. "What's so bad about ShinRa?"

A million things came to Erina's head at once, making her bite her lip, clench her fists and growl. "They're a bunch of shit-heads and should all go fucking die like they deserve!" With that she turned around and stormed off, leaving the boy to wonder what got her so angry in the first place.

When she was far away from his site and long since out of earshot, Erina stopped and thought for a moment. "Probably should go find Girly before he worries himself sick again and get's into a stupid situation."

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><p><strong>Not too sure how to get the canon characters into this but I'm trying! Truly!<strong>

**Erina's Chlorophobic (think I spelt that right) so it means she's scared of the colour green. And that's why she hates Aerith's eyes when I love them.**

**Thanks for the reviews SuperTifa you are Super! Ha had to put it that way, said it to my friend and laughed after I realised what I'd just said.**

**The ideas were good really, better than what me and my sister came up with. I'll probably say those two boy's names next chapter when I can figure out what to write. It's fun making people wait for those kinds of things.**

**I've been listening to Girl's Generation's first album and half watching the AristoCat's While writing this, so unfitting. Especially the south Korean Bubble Gum Pop. I love China town now, it's mostly only restaurants I'd never want to eat at but that CD/DVD store is so epic (It sells J-pop and K-pop!) I bought SNSD's Debut and third Album. But my mum bought 'The boys' for me so out of $220 I only spent $22 and we were supposed to go on a shopping spree in Sydney. Turns out the Westfield shopping centre is now made specifically for Super rich people and Asians. Sure 1/5 people there was Asian so that's understandable but not everyone's rich. Most of the clothes sucked anyway.**

**Got 70 dollars for my birthday though so now I'm definitely getting my Serah Cosplay.**

**Updated on my birthday how fun. Now I'm going to watch old Disney movies because I'm being immature today as an insult to 'Sweet Sixteenth'**

**Please review I'll love you forever. Jya ne.**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	10. Some unwanted help

**(3,048 words) Nyan I said their names. Don't ask I'm bored. There was something I needed to happen but kept putting it off for stupid reasons but I finally did it so I'm happy now. I'm not too sure what's going to happen in future chapters, but I'll do my best. I hope this one's alright too.**

**Enjoy,**

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><p><span>Wings of Regret chapter 10:<span>

Some unwanted help

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><p>Erina turned a corner on the path, dodging a huge group of teenagers obviously ditching school. They laughed their heads off at a stupid joke made by a short blonde girl on their left, which frankly wasn't even funny. It made her scowl knowing that they weren't much different than any other teenager nowadays. God were they annoying.<p>

She'd spent a good while trying to find Yoshioka, but she hadn't kept track of the path she had taken, so she wasn't even remotely sure how to get back to the café. If she did, she could go there and get his sister to call him and get him to come back and pick her up, as he must've been far away by now like she was. Soon the sun would begin to set, but for now it was still bright out; well, as bright as it got in Midgar. Sure the sun was out and it was still fairly easy to see, but there was fog above them which blurred the sky, along with help from gas from cars and buses. She would like to have a clear view of the blue sky, since it was ever so calming, but in this city it'd be a miracle for such a thing to happen.

She was forced to dodge another group, some housewives wheeling their toddlers around in their prams, too distracted with their pointless chatter to notice that the wheels had almost run over her foot. This whole place was just stupid she decided. People were too caught up in their deluded lives to give a damn about the existence of others. Whether it was some stranger from a country town they'd let starve to death so they can have a little extra money to buy fancy clothes or their best friend who they secretly cared nothing for. It helped that she had visions, so she could tell all this without having to actually listen or look at the pathetic people who strolled by. It was annoying beyond all reason, but this entire time she'd been having flashes of the lives of each and every person who passed within a metre of her. They were quick, everyday situations for the most part, but the things they said or thought told otherwise. The amount of backstabbers who lived on the plate was atrocious.

Erina strode past a crossing, where the crowd thinned because most people were heading in the other direction. She was thankful for brief moment of reprieve from being squished between idiots, until the flow of people filing past her went back to normal a couple minutes later. She frowned and pushed past them, with intent to hurt any who didn't get out of the way. She really couldn't be bothered to deal with this anymore. She dashed into a side street, virtually abandoned besides a chained up puppy which began yapping at her when she woke it up with the sound of heavy footsteps. She slowed to a stop and catch her breath. She kneeled and placed one hand on the dirt ground to steady herself. Though she'd ran only a little more than a minute she'd done it at almost her full speed while both sleep deprived and starving. She had no energy in her at the moment.

She jumped back up when she recovered enough and began again, walking this time of course. She toyed with the strands of black hair which grew over her left eye, having nothing better. Even her hair liked to be irritating. That was something she had quickly realised after she'd left home. She'd always had someone to cut it before it got too long, but after she had left her home town she didn't have anyone since she didn't trust Rhapsody, Jessica or any acquaintance of theirs to go near her with a pair of scissors. Her hair was thick, and had the annoying habit of growing over her left eye no matter what happened. It wasn't as it her fringe grew only of the left, she had short bits of hair partially covering the right side of her forehead and ear, but it grew like wildfire on the left. She wasn't even sure how it made sense; it would just happen no matter which way it was cut. And it really needed to be cut at the moment, the end the fringe curled right into her eye.

Erina's stomach growled loudly when she reached the end of the backstreet. She put her hand on her stomach with a frown. "Man when was the last time I ate?" She asked herself as her stomach growled again. She thought back to that, she knew she hadn't at the café, so that meant it was the tiny bowl of soup she'd had in the cell. It was stupid, she was in no way a prisoner, but she was treated the same.

She was a second away from reluctantly stepping out into the crowd again, attempting for a second time to either find Yoshioka or that café his sister worked at. Whichever one was fine, she could get food that way. But right before she stepped out and hand came out of the shadows and grabbed her by the hand. From fright she tried to scream but another hand covered her mouth. She was pulled back deeply into the alley, and thrown roughly into a wall. She groaned as her side was cut by a jagged piece of metal placed against the wall. She fell to the ground grasping her now bleeding side, a tears of pain welled up, but she forced them not to fall, she didn't want whoever had done this to think she was weak.

She looked up to see who had done it, now that she could. He was a tall, bulky man. His hair was greying, though a few reddish brown hairs remained there was barely any of it left on his head. His arms were muscled and hairy, same went for his legs. He had a stained white singlet top and tattered black pants, he had a huge gut and double chins, which were hairy as well. He was a hideous man who stunk of alcohol and garbage, it made her want to puke. He took a swig from the bottle in his hands, half of it landed on his top instead of in his mouth. He threw it away where it shattered next to the puppy which had barked at her earlier; it jumped back in sudden fright and watched the scene before it with apprehension. The man wobbled and almost vomited, clearly he was drunk. He laughed to himself, as he grabbed Erina by the collar. Despite how grubby his hands were the teen resorted to biting them to see if it'd loosen his grasp. It didn't. He chuckled and tightened his hold, lifting her upwards where she proceeded to gasp for air. She kicked at the ground below her, and at his ginormous beer belly. If he felt it he did not respond.

"Fuck off!" She wheezed, trying to kick him some more. The man laughed drunkenly,

"Aw come on, can't I have some fun? What are you? Eighteen?"

"What the fuck man? I'm thirteen what are you retarded?" _Oh wait, yes, yes he is._

"Ah, that's all the better." He sniggered as he tossed her to the ground.

She landed with a thud and got badly winded, ruining her chances of running off. In a panic she looked out to the crowd walking by. _They see this don't they? Why aren't they doing something? I'm in plain sight! Oh yeah that's right, they're a bunch of lying shitheads who don't give a damn about anyone but themselves!_

The drunkard swayed dangerously as he walked towards her, the was man so drunk even standing was a challenge. It didn't take an idiot to guess what he wanted to do, it was the same thing that lab assistant Danic had tried to do the night she'd broken her arm. She would rather let Danic touch her then let this freak go near her. The stench coming from him was vomit inducing, she didn't even want to get started on his appearance. She tried to get her breathing back to normal so she could escape, but remained winded, coughing violently.

He unsteadily began to crouch down, but before he laid a hand on her, the remainder of the bottle he'd discarded hit him on the back of the head. He collapsed sidewards, unconscious, drool trickled from his agape mouth, showing her all his missing teeth. For a moment Erina was confused at the suddenness of it all, but after the initial ten seconds she let herself calm down and her eyes snapped up to see who had saved her. She half expected it to be Yoshioka considering he was the one who had saved her last time in a similar event, and was also searching for her. It most certainly had not been him, but the brunette boy who had annoyed her last time.

She scowled at him, sure she should feel thankful that he'd saved her from something horrible, but she'd already learnt to hate that face.

His expression went quizzical for a moment, before it occurred to him what she was thinking. "You know most people would be thankful when someone helps them, what's with the frown?"

Erina growled, "Because I hate you, I could've helped myself."

"Didn't look like that to me. Besides it was clear no one was going to help even when you're in plain sight, so I guess I might as well." He said it like it was a trivial matter; which made her scowl deepen. Of what little she knew of this person from the visions she'd already had of him today, he seemed to be rather mature for his age. Only he was acting the opposite near her for a reason she couldn't guess.

"Don't talk like that it's annoying! Now fuck off!" She barked as she picked herself up, in the time the drunkard had been unconscious, her breathing had returned to normal. The boy raised an eyebrow at her words; she rolled her eyes figuring why he'd done it. For the way she spoke was much worse than his. "Yeah I know so what? Fuck off."

She pivoted and headed back the way she came so she wouldn't have to go any closer to him. What was he stalking her now? She jokingly thought, after all he had accused her of stalking him earlier, it made sense enough. She stopped however, when an unfamiliar boy's voice, deeper than his, called out to him from the entrance of the alleyway.

"Hey Genesis!" Erina turned her head a mite to see who'd called out. The boy who had helped her, Genesis as she knew his name to be, also turned his head. Clearly he'd recognised the voice and wasn't surprised to hear it, so she could take a guess without looking that the one who'd spoken was the boy she had stalked earlier.

The other boy headed closer to them, he had his hand on his forehead shielding his blue eyes from the sunlight that had crept into the alley. The others who had their backs to it had no need.

"You ran off there, what happened?" He asked but got the answer himself when he noticed the broken beer bottle his friend was holding, which he quickly threw away when he realised he was still holding it, and the unconscious man on the ground. "What the…?"

"Long story short that guy was trying to attack that girl," He pointed to Erina who was still scowling at him, "And no one tried to help her so I decided I would." He answered to rid his friend of the confusion he felt over the whole situation.

"Okay then." The boy frowned, thinking about it, he looked back to the crowd strolling past like this backstreet didn't exist. Erina tried to get her ability to work to try and hear his thoughts, but she drew a blank and instead got his friend's which she had no care for.

However when the black haired boy looked up to her a spark of recognition lit in his eyes. "Hey aren't you that girl from before?"

She blushed remembering how she had idiotically run into him last time she had hid from the lab assistants and guards.

"Do you know her?" Genesis asked with a puzzled look, having an interest in this conversation all of a sudden.

His friend chuckled and scratched the nape of his neck, "Ah, yeah."

"I ran into him a couple weeks ago." Erina stated, getting Genesis's eyes on her until his friend added,

"Literally."

Her face turned a darker red. Genesis nodded with a slight grin, "Alright then."

He began walking off; Erina was glad for this, except that he also said, "You know she was stalking you before?"

"Eh?" His friend exclaimed in shock, he was going to turn and question the girl behind him but she snapped back,

"I was not you dumb bastard!"

"You clearly were sorry," He grinned and it dawned on her he was simply trying to mess with her. He called back to his friend before disappearing behind the corner, "Hey come on Angeal we should be heading back."

"Yeah okay." He replied and was right about to head out of the alley when he heard a squeal. In wonder he looked back to see the young girl behind him squealing before she screamed out,

"Holy shit your name sounds like Angel!" Her face was bright with happiness, and her smile broad.

He jumped back from shock, truly not expecting that. "Uuh yes I realised, so what's yours then?" He asked for no reason at all but to change the subject if only slightly.

"My name is none of your business. See ya." She giggled still giddy over the 'angel' thing and ran off down a turn in the alley.

Angeal was rooted to the spot for a moment, wondering what just happened. How did she go from scowling to happy because of a similarity between names exactly?

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><p>In the end Erina found the café before she found Yoshioka. And as she had guessed she would, his sister called him up and told him how she was back at the café. The man had come back an exhausted heap. He told Erina all about how his sister had rung him up early in the morning on a rare day off because she had gone missing, so he had to waste it searching for her. This made her laugh, so he face-palmed<p>

They made their way back to the ShinRa building late afternoon. He had to work tonight anyway, and she was tired and honestly the cell was better than that stupid storage room at the café. Plus then she would have the presence of people she actually liked and not annoying morons. They snuck up the staircase, and when she'd reached the floor the cells were on she exited through the door there intending to wander about until someone found her. Yoshioka went back down the staircase so he could enter through the main entrance, an exhausting feat.

Erina was lucky to be found by a guard and not a lab assistant, they were much nicer. He held her wrists too tight and that was painful, but she put up with it; it'd be worst if it was someone like Danic or Brooke, as one would try to rape her and the other try to give her brain damage. She was shoved into the cell, where Aerith almost immediately jumped on her crying out that she had been lonely and being the kid she was asked a million questions about where she had been.

The older of the two giggled at the cuteness of it all. They sat against a wall like they usually would, since they didn't have the bed for Ifalna was fast asleep on it. She was making Erina worry, the woman was sick, of what she hadn't any idea, but it wasn't good. The two talked for hours, as they had nothing else they could do. Apparently the girl was scared to touch the doll, which she'd dubbed Lucy since she was scared her wings were falling off and she hadn't any idea how you'd put them back on. She also complained about her arms being 'hurty' as she'd put it. It was hard understanding what had happened to Aerith from someone who was too young to understand what was going on about her, but what she got was that she had been taken in for more testing. Right now there was a lot of testing going on over the genetical difference between Aerith and her mother. It was pretty much them testing how much Cetra she was on comparison, seeing as the girl was part human. She'd seen the vision last time she'd been experimented on, that someone had lost the majority of the test results of when they'd originally tested it; she knew they'd eventually have to run all the tests again. She felt sorry for Aerith about it, there was multiple blood tests involved and she'd learnt herself that they hurt.

She put on a smile as the girl continued her explanation of what had happened, before pausing and letting Erina tell her everything that had happened to her. She avoided a certain something, and went a little overboard with saying how annoying a certain brunette was, and for a stupid reason went into more description than needed about how she'd screamed about how a certain black haired blue eyed boy's name sounded like Angel.

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><p><strong>Erina has a massive obsession with angels, if I haven't mentioned already. I can't remember why either, I think it was something to do with freedom...something like that.<strong>

**Hope you enjoyed, please review! Concrit's welcomed and comments are discouraged.**

**Jya ne,**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine.**


	11. Bad doggie

**(4,362 words) I think this is a buffer chapter or something. I don't really know what to do at the moment, this point of the story is probably the most difficult to plan chapters for because not too much happens when she's thirteen. I can't completely skip it because they're things that happen and need to happen. If anyone has any ideas could they help maybe? I know this story doesn't have many fans but still.**

**Oh by the way, I'm putting my stories on partial hiatus so I can get my oldest story Organisation REI over and done with. Though this and DATW (My most popular story, which also happens to have over a hundred crazy FLight shippers stalking it) get priority over the others. So updating with this and the other should stay about the same.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

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><p><em><span>Wings of Regret Chapter 11: <span>_

_Bad doggie_

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><p>Erina inspected the stitching on the angel doll that Aerith had been worrying over. It'd been a couple days since she'd first been told it was falling apart, and the kid hadn't touched it once. She found it somewhat sad, as the girl had been having a lot of fun with it, seeing as she was stuck in this dark and creepy place having the toy would make her a lot happier. She hadn't a thing to do while stuck in the cell and it had to be incredibly boring to her. The only times she wasn't here was during tests and Erina guessed she mustn't like them very much at all. They were confusing and made her all 'hurty' as she would always put it. The cell was the best place; it'd suck for that to be ruined too. Erina figured she'd have enough time to see if she could fix it, she hadn't been experimented on and it seemed to her she wouldn't have to go back for a while either. Maybe they were angry at all the times she'd up and left, forcing her to stay locked up in the cell would be suitable punishment. Funny thing was she didn't hate the cell as much as they believed. Aerith and her mother were about the only people she could stand, they were nice people. She could put up with Yoshioka and his sister, but that didn't mean she liked them.<p>

Gently Erina picked up the doll, eyeing closely the stitching at the back, holding the wings to the main body. They were the most loose, and she didn't believe she could save them. You could give them a little pull and they would fall right off. The rest seemed practically fine, as long as she was gentle removing the wings it would be okay.

She looked up to view the barred window near the top of the cell on the wall opposite, the sun would rise soon she predicted. Seeing as it was early she decided to rest for a little longer, hoping Aerith would still be in the cell when she awoke.

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><p>A tiny ray of sunlight entered through the window and flickered against Erina's closed eyelids. Sensing it, she altered her position, and reluctantly roused. She slowly opened her eyes, blinking them before she adjusted to the light. The sun was in a perfect point in the sky for it to enter the cell and light it up, there was only a small fraction of the day where this was possible, and she hated it when it woke her. Sitting up, she rubbed sleep from her eyes and brushed stray strands of hair out of her face. It took a minute for her to become fully aware of her surroundings.<p>

Turning back she was happy to find Aerith was still on the floor besides her, and her mother on the bed near the wall closest. She allowed herself a rare smile and sat with her back to the wall, her knees drawn close. She was in a skirt, but it wasn't like anyone was looking. She decided to wait for the kid to wake up instead of waking her up herself. Ifalna was in increasingly bad health, some extra silence to help her sleep would be good. The stupid assistants were too busy testing to notice her health no matter how obvious it became, Erina hoped that sickness could affect lab results, because then they'd have to notice and try to help her. She was a valuable specimen to them, they wouldn't let her die.

Ten or so minutes later, Aerith begun to stir. She made a funny puppy-like sound before yawning and shuffling a bit. It was odd to say, but the older one would have to say that was the cutest way she'd ever seen someone wake. Eventually she sat up and spotted Erina looking her way.

"Eri!" She giggled and jumped into her lap, already acting energetic even so early in the morning.

"Yeah hello there." Erina chuckled and ruffled the kid's brown hair as she started to cling to her left arm. "You know your mamma's still sleeping over there, so shush." She put a finger in front of her mouth and made a 'shuuuu' sound. "We'll go sit over there 'kay?" She pointed to the wall opposite, which would not only let Ifalna rest but also make it so the sun wouldn't get in their eyes. It'd only last for a few minutes longer but she was more than a little sick of that god damn sun.

Both girls sat next to the wall on the far side of the cell, as Erina told Aerith her idea of what to do with the doll.

"Noo! Not her wings! Lucy need her wings! She gotta be an angel and angels got wings!" She cried, snatching the doll away from the older girl.

"Fine then, it's only an option. I'll see if Yoshioka can take her and find someone to get her fixed. He has a better chance than we do." Erina said instead, she probably should've realised she'd provoke that reaction. Even she liked Lucy's wings.

"Yokiosha?" Aerith questioned, curiously.

Erina chuckled, she couldn't remember if she had actually mentioned him to Aerith or not. If she had, she'd probably skipped his name. Well 'Yoshioka' was a little too complicated for a five year old to manage, if only the bastard would tell her his real name.

"Yo-shi-o-ka." Erina pronounced each syllable for her. "He's a guy I know."

"A friend?" The child tilted her head in question just like a puppy.

"I guess." The teen grinned half-heartedly. She wasn't sure what she would call him. He got really obnoxious and immature sometimes, but he was protective and would give her help even if she didn't ask, as long as he could see she needed it. He'd even stopped an attack from the assistants a couple months back, and patched her up to add to that. He was a really good guy to be true, a much better person than Rhapsody and his stupid lot. But she wasn't sure they were friends. For one he was almost twenty three and she'd only just turned thirteen. He was a random Turk that sympathised for her and wanted to help her in any way possible, but that's what any good person with a heart would do.

She didn't even know what his real name was, but then again, he didn't know hers either.

"Eri?" Aerith questioned after the other had made no response for a full minute.

"Oh sorry, I'm just thinking. So is it fine if Yoshioka gets her fixed for you? He's trustworthy enough."

"Trustworky?"

"Trust-worthy." She pronounced it slowly again so it was easier to understand. "It means he's nice and I can trust him. That's like someone you can tell a bunch of secrets to and they'd never tell, 'cause they're trustworthy and wouldn't do something so mean." Erina almost laughed at her own words, they were so stupid and childish. But she was dumbing them down on purpose. Aerith was a smart girl, but nothing changed the fact that she was only five.

"So Yohioka fix her?"

"Yoshioka." She corrected.

"Yoshika."

"Yoshioka." She corrected again.

"Yoshiako."

"Yoshioka!" She corrected yet again.

"Yoshioko."

"Yoshi-" Erina started to say before she realised, "Hey you're doing this on purpose aren't you?"

It was obvious the child tried really hard not to laugh, but before she could stop herself a grin split across her face and she burst out laughing, falling backwards on the ground. Realising she'd hit the nail on the head Erina jokingly frowned and said,

"Hey you tricked me you evil little munchkin. You should be punished!"

"Eh?" Aerith eyes went wide, both scared and confused by what those words meant. And before Erina really knew what she was doing at all she pinned Aerith to the ground and tickled her until the kid's flaying limbs started to hurt.

It was the most immature thing she'd ever done Erina believed. That didn't stop it from being hilarious. This little girl was the reason that she didn't mind being stuck in the cell that much, she wasn't annoying like other little kids, she was just adorable and that was that.

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><p>A few days past, Yoshioka didn't come by once, so she had no opportunity to go make him get Lucy fixed up. She didn't know if she should be happy or sad for that. He was a nice guy but he was damn annoying, it was refreshing not having to deal with him, but then she wanted him to hurry up and sneak in here so she could fix the doll for Aerith. Of course there wasn't a one hundred per cent chance of him actually being able to do so, but as she had said in her earlier conversation with the child, he had a much better chance than them.<p>

Erina begun to get suspicious about why he wasn't coming; easily he was just suffering from a heavy workload, he was a Turk after all, nothing weird with that. But then some silly paranoid voice in the back of her head said that those stupid scientists wanted to make sure she was stuck in here and had tightened security, thus making it difficult for him to reach her. She wasn't sure to put the thought down to just being plain paranoid, she did take into consideration there was some proof to say it was true.

Whatever the reason was, in the end she was stuck in the cramped cold cell for a full week without being taken out once. Most of this time was spent alone, as the other two were taken out and subjected to tests on a regular basis. She thought maybe the reason why nothing was being done to her was punishment for escaping so much. This had gone through her head plenty of times before, but now she really did feel that to be the truth. She'd been a little on the sceptical side before.

Erina didn't even know what was being done to her or why, she was seen as an unneeded extra, so she doubted they cared about what happened to her. If something went wrong during testing, there was a damn good chance that none of the scientist would give a crap, she decided. Hojo would maybe feel annoyed for a bit about losing a valuable and amusing specimen, but he'd soon get over it and find someone new to replace her. She hated that man, she really did; she wanted to tie him to a chair and hammer rusty nails into his head, or perhaps sneak up behind him and kick him out of the highest floor of the building so he'd be a bloody pancake on the ground.

She shook her head violently when those thoughts slipped in, they disturbed her to think she'd come up with both so easily. She wasn't bothered by the idea of Hojo dying violently, actually that'd be hilarious, but it certainly bothered her that she could come up with two very different ways to die like they were silly trivial things.

Erina huffed and laid down on the freezing cold floor, it was night and nothing stopped the cold wind from seeping in. She could see her own breath in front of her as it floated up to the roof and dispersed into nothing. She wished the other two would come back soon, this solitude would drive her mad if she had to keep it up.

It was some time later that the other two were returned to the cell, Aerith hopped into her lap and complained about being tired. It was stupid that she had been kept up in such a fashion; Erina didn't even want to guess what time it was, some ungodly hour for sure. The kid must've been incredibly tired. The older of the two continued their conversation until the child fell asleep in her lap; she wasn't too surprised over how quickly she'd fallen asleep, she'd been having trouble keeping her eyes open right from the moment she and her mother had gotten back.

After that Ifalna started up a conversation with her, before doing so she'd assisted Erina in carrying Aerith over to the bed and pulling her blankets up over her. They didn't talk for too long, considering both were fairly tired themselves. But they were fine with it anyway. Erina mentioned about the time Yoshioka had taken her out again, the time she'd had a run in with two boys. She went over-board about saying how annoying one of them had been, the woman caught on to that fact and asked what was the need to say so much about such a thing, it was mean. The teen mentioned that it was a habit of hers, especially when she didn't like the person she was talking about. Though she didn't neglect to mention that she'd learnt from a few visions he'd been in that he wasn't so bad a guy, and certainly more mature than what he'd acted like around her. It'd confused her why he'd chosen to act so obnoxious to her, and it put her in a bad mood just trying to figure it out. She was half joking when she said it, but Ifalna chose to say that maybe he was picking on her because he liked her. Of course then Erina shook her head with a laugh and reminded her that that never really happens, it's just a lie mothers say to their kids to make them feel better. Ifalna frowned at that, but didn't comment on it. It was clear enough that she disliked the pessimistic attitude the girl was showing.

Erina at least made it better when she smiled and talked about how the other guy's name sounded so much like Angel. It was cute how excited something as simple as a name had made her. For once she really looked like the child she was. The girl was really obsessed with angels, she couldn't explain the reason in words, but she absolutely adored them, ever since she'd been very young. Ifalna believed, subconsciously at least, to Erina angels represented freedom and a shining light, neither of which she had in this life. Maybe they were something she wished to have in her grasp. Sure she wasn't constantly cooped up in this building, but those couple hours outside every now and then didn't deserve to be called freedom.

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><p>Almost another week had passed before she was taken out. It felt weird to be walking, for she'd barely taken more than a few steps a day whilst in the cell. It was something she had to readjust to, though that didn't take very long. It was a guard that had taken her out, and his grip on her arm was crushing the bone. She doubted he noticed. He wasn't doing it on purpose clearly, it was reasonable to believe he was used to having to hold someone's arm so tightly while moving around. The other people around here were in actuality prisoners after all. There were few exceptions, her being one of them.<p>

She didn't make a fuss as she was forced to make her way to the lab, she wasn't in the mood to deal with the consequences her actions would have if she got out of the guards grasp and made a run for it. She was shoved over to one of the lab assistants when they reached their destination, who like the guard had, held her by the arm with a grip stronger than necessary. But again this was reasonable, as the man had every right to believe she'd make a run for it like she had in the past. He also had no right to believe her if she told him she wouldn't try to escape, it was likely that was an outright lie.

Erina held her tongue, simply offering a scowl to them, instead of the usual harsh words. She took a minute to observe them as they led her to a table with leather straps where a person's arms and legs could be secured. There were little people in the room, and from that she sufficed that this was nothing major, just a couple tests. She was placed on the table and her limbs were tied to it with the straps. She didn't have the strength to overpower any of these people, but it'd be troublesome for them if she lashed out. She felt a needle inserted into her arm, and before she could even run the thought of how much she hated needles through her head, a wave of dizziness hit her and everything became a blur. Her sight was twisted; everything was either completely black or so bright it hurt to directly look at. The voices littered about the room became faint whispers that didn't resemble any language.

Over a time she couldn't comprehend in her dazed state, a handful more needles were inserted and the scientists scurried about the room like mice, going in a constant loop, checking her every now and then. After all this her arms and legs were set free and she was dragged off the table and put into a mako tank. Even though just a moment before she couldn't make sense of a single thing, when mako filled the tank she was struck by the strong sent of dirt, and the stinging pain in both her arms where the needles had been, and in her eyes. In neither place was it weak. It was disgusting the rush of sensations it brought, the sickening smell, the horrible pain. The ugly shade of green it covered the room before her, was just as infuriating.

She would've been in there for over an hour at least, and in that time the effects of the drug had faded, though her sight remained blurred her sense of smell had gone back to normal and now she was stuck dealing with the full brunt of the stench. She knew it to be the smell of nature and nothing more, but she hated it. She had no idea how she had stood the smell back when she had been travelling around with Rhapsody and his lot, it was repulsive.

Erina was more than glad when the mako was drained out and she was taken out of the tank. She was unsteady on her feet as her sight was still unclear, but her other senses had all returned to normal at least. She was led to the front of the room, where she guessed a guard was waiting to take her out, only this time it wasn't a guard.

She couldn't make out the person's face but she recognised their voice with ease, no one else had a voice like that but Danic. Her stomach sank at the thought, why were people still allowing him to go near her? Bad things always happened when he went near her. Sure people didn't give a crap about her but it was still a problem when someone was posing a threat to their specimen wasn't it?

She aimed a kick at him but without being able to see him properly she missed by a long shot and almost fell flat on her ass, only for him to catch her by the wrist.

"Stupid girl, do that again and I'll make sure you pay." He spat, the words would've affected her more if she could see his furious face. He tightened his hold on her hand and pulled her along, out of the room and down the hall.

"Let me go!" She yelled.

"Screw that." Danic replied, with no emotion sounding in his voice.

"I have a feeling you're not even taking me back to the cell."

"Wow, said something smart for once didn't you. Hey, I'm allowed to be stubborn, if I don't get what I want the first time I'll keep trying until I do get it. Know what I mean?" He sniggered.

_Oh of course, _she thought. What a stubborn bastard he was. Someone really should just kill him, the world would be better off without a person like him.

"Fuck off, you are not doing that!" Erina screamed, and successfully ripped her hand from his grasp, only to lose her balance and fall backwards, hitting the ground hard. Luckily for once, not winding herself. Still, in her current state running off was impossible. The only way out was for someone with half a mind to come along and stop him from doing anything with her. So she resorted to wishing for that.

Glaring daggers at her, Danic kicked her in the chest and kept his foot on it so she'd stay down. "Damn bitch, why do you think you can get away? What makes you have these delusions? What do you think you'll get out of this life as well? The only way you'll get out is if you die, you know that right!? Nothing is going to go your way in this life, so you may as well just lay back and let me do whatever the hell I want!" He ranted madly, before crouching down and holding her by the collar.

He grinned, "It's hopeless to fight, somewhere inside, you know that don't you?"

He wanted to make her agree, to force her into a depression where she'd have no other choice. But he misjudged her if he thought it'd be that easy.

Erina grinned back, and spat in his face. "Fuck off you little shit, I hope you piss someone off enough in the near future that they decide it'd be ever so fun to cut you up into neat little pieces and cook you for dinner."

Unable to come up with a response to her disturbing threat, Danic growled and tightened his grip. It'd wouldn't be a surprise to say that she'd put him in such a mood that he wasn't even going to be bothered enough to find some secluded place to have what he'd wanted, but have it right here right now. Only before he managed, a heavy object was smashed into the back of his head. He was knocked off of Erina and rolled about the ground in terrible pain. Eventually he looked up to see who'd hit him, to see a woman holding a large book close to her chest.

"Fucking hell Alison, why'd you have to hit me?"

The woman frowned and hit him again saying, "Bad dog bad! That's Professor King to you! Now scat!"

She went to hit him again but he dodged by rolling and jumped up quickly so she'd have a much harder time hitting him on the head if she could at all, thanks to their drastic height difference.

"The hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing, the question is what is wrong with you? Good doggies do what their masters tell them; do you want me to hit you again?"

"No, why the hell would I want that?" He cried, confused.

"Because you're a bad doggie!" She swung the book at him but he back stepped and then ran off saying,

"Screw this shit."

The woman, Alison, watched him until she couldn't see him anymore, before focussing her attention to the girl on the ground.

"You're Hojo's little toy aren't you? You okay? Danic can be horrible sometimes." She questioned, but Erina wasn't bothered to reply. Alison was of average height with a slim figure and fair skin. Her hair went just past her shoulders and was the colour of honey, there was a slight curve at the ends and her fringe was styled to frame her face. Her eyes were a caramel colour. She had a pretty voice, but there was a forceful edge in her tone.

"You there?" She asked when the teen made no reply. Realising she wouldn't get away without one she answered.

"Call me a toy again and I'll hit you." Alison didn't appear surprised by her words.

"Don't worry; everyone is his toy according to him. Just for some people it's much worse than usual; you're about the best example for that from what I know. He's has plenty more like you, but I think you're the only human one at the moment." It was hard to tell if her tone was apologetic or expressing disgust.

Erina tried not to make a response to that fact she said she was the only human one _at the moment. _"Okay then." She muttered under her breath before hopping up and striding past Alison.

"Eh? Where are you going?" The woman questioned, turning around to face her.

"I'm going to keep walking around until one of the guards find me and take me back to the cell. It's nice walking around sometimes, it's a shame I still can't bloody see properly."

Though it wasn't the correct thing to do, the scientist chose not to go after her. _Weird child_, she thought as she walked off in the opposite direction.

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><p><strong>Nyan, done.<strong>

**Reviews shall be much appreciated.**

**Jya ne,**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	12. Reunion

**(8,151 words) Haven't updated in a bit, gomen na. I know this story is severely lacking fans, but still.**

**What I was going to write and what I actually wrote are completely different, so what I was going to write will probably be in a chapter or two.**

**Hope you enjoy**

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><p><span><strong>Wings of Regret <strong>

**chapter 12:**

** Reunion**

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><p>Erina nibbled on her pinkie nail as she stared out the tiny barred window of the cell. It was midday, she deduced. It was bright, but the sun was obviously above what she could see from the opening. She was kneeling by the wall, on the same side as the door. A tray of food was left untouched by her feet. She was hungry, but was sick off the food they gave her, it was never enough to sustain her, and it was disgusting and bland. Whether it was lukewarm or cold the taste would be the same. She'd drunk the bottle of water that had come with it; it was a lot more than what she'd been getting recently, so she'd gulped it down greedily. She licked her lips, they were still dry, and she was still thirsty as well. She was glad it never got hot in the cell; it was always freezing cold, no matter how hot it got outside.<p>

She'd woken up alone today, as she had the day before that, and the day before that. She felt exhausted, completely out of energy. She'd been sleeping more she found, not that she could help it. The experiments were stressful on her tiny form and what she was given to sustain herself was too little to make up for it. This situation was bound to happen eventually. She could never remember a time where she'd wished to see Yoshioka so much, if he came and got her out he could take her to a place where she could pig out and drink plenty of water, so she could actually replenish herself.

Plus she still had the angel doll to get fixed, without him she had no way to go about it. She wanted Aerith to have something nice, even if they had to hide it when guards came in.

After another fifteen minutes of biting her nail and blankly staring into the distance, thinking little, she decided to actually eat the food by her right foot. She couldn't put up with her hunger any longer. She sat down properly and pushed it in front of her, as she hadn't moved it earlier it'd still been by the door. Frankly, it looked like a mashed up bunch of crap, differing in colours based on where it was on the tray, with some vegetables, she guessed, in the corner. She had a fork, but it wasn't very useful, a spoon would have been better. So she threw it away and scooped up the guck with her hands. One of the piles tasted a bit like mashed potato, a disgusting version. So she ate it first, since from the experience, the rest she could deal with. She left the green pile of crap and what she thought must've been vegetables alone. She refused to eat green things. Everything green was evil, even food.

She wished she hadn't drunk all the water so fast now, if she hadn't she could have had something to wash the bad taste out of her mouth.

"Damn." Erina sighed to herself, and laid down on the floor, fiddling with stray locks of hair. Solitude was nice for awhile, but not forever.

Soon after eating, she had a nap, having better nothing to do. She fell asleep quickly, and had a set of peculiar dreams. One had thrown her into a maze where she unable to escape, another threw her into a forest full of animals walking on their hind legs. Before she had time to question she fell to a third and final one. She supposed it could be considered a nightmare, she was running from zombified overweight men who resembled the man she'd unfortunately had a run in with when she got lost. The ground was completely covered in animal bones and broken bottles. This was apparently how her mind chose to interpret what had happened last time she got out. She felt relatively calm as the dream played out, but when she awoke she found herself covered in a thin layer of sweat. She inspected her arm, looked like what had happened really had bothered her.

Moments after she had woken up, she heard talking outside of her door. She knew the low, gruff voice was that of a guard, but the other was skipping her mind. It didn't help that she could barely make out the words through the thick metal door that had her trapped in here. She raised an eyebrow, curious about the conversation, it couldn't be more experiments, it'd been too soon. Her arms still stung from needles, her bones still ached, and her head was still unclear from the drugs administered to stop her fighting.

Her eyes narrowed when the door opened wide, if they dared make her go out so soon she'd make sure to struggle, hoping to dear god that she could succeed this time. Her eyes went wide, from a mix of confusion and shock, when instead of the guard or any of the scientists she knew joined in the experimentations walked in, but the blonde woman who had stopped Danic's last advancement. From the weird conversations that had left their mouths, she had pieced together that the woman's name was Alison King. Her lab coat showed that she was from the science department, though Erina was aware of this already since she'd heard the woman call herself 'professor' in their last meeting.

Alison looked down at her and her shocked expression, with an indifferent one. She seemed somewhat cold, but not without common sense like most in the department. The teenager was unsure to say whether that made the woman any nicer than her fellow scientists. She wondered more though, how old the woman was. Alison was taller than her yes, but from her physical appearance, she looked to be only a few years older. This made Erina wonder as well, if anything illegal had happened to make her secure her position in the company. She couldn't be more than eighteen.

"What?" Alison raised an eyebrow at her, "What is with that face? Honestly you looked as if you've seen a ghost. I'm not a ghost; a ghost couldn't have punished that bad doggie like I did." She referred to of course when she'd whacked Danic to get him to leave Erina alone.

"I know that!" Erina snapped, and scowled. She had common sense yes, but she didn't seem any nicer. She seemed incredibly annoyed by the girl's reaction to her appearance. But wouldn't anyone have such a reaction? None of the scientist had actually entered the cell before; the guards always took her out. And plus, It didn't look like the woman was taking her out for more tests; otherwise they would be out already. "Why are you here anyway?" She did her best not to sound rude, but she had to admit, the mood of the woman had affected hers too.

"A check-up you could say." The woman shrugged and kneeled down in front of the other. "A few of my fellow scientist have become somewhat concerned over the state of your health. Lately they've allowed Hojo to experiment on some of the prisoners, the really bad ones who would have been put to death otherwise." She spoke calmly enough, showing this was something she was used to, but there was something on her face that Erina liked, a hint of disgust. She was sane then, she was obvious against human experimentation. Only it looked like she had no power to do anything about it.

"For about a week or so all the specimens were perfectly fine," Alison continued. "But then things went wrong, some became sick, very sick, and others begun fading away before our eyes. A few of my colleagues are worried over this, these men are much bigger than a kid like you; they've been worrying over if your body is actually able to take the experiments. I'll admit those men were undergoing different tests and such, but it's better to be safe than sorry. We haven't mentioned anything to Hojo, he'll probably think it's a stupid idea, he seems to have forgotten you're a child."

Erina scowled at the use of the word 'child', but understood that the woman was speaking sense. "Okay then."

"This won't take long, and then I'll be out of your hair." Though she chose to say it that way, Erina knew that she wanted to be gone more than the teen wanted her gone. The woman had interrupted the nothingness that had covered the cell. It would have been nicer if the woman wasn't uncomfortable here.

First she checked her heart rate, which she was told was normal. She took another few tests that Erina wasn't fully sure were meant to do. One of them was something along the lines of reaction times; she guessed that was in there because of the drugs that had made her mind sluggish. The effects lasted awhile if she was forced to have multiple of them at once. Her mind hadn't gone back to 100%, and it showed. Alison frowned at that.

For most of the check-up, Erina kept her head down when possible. It was at irregular intervals that visions occurred. She had learnt that her eyes didn't always change when they happened, but just in case they had this time around, she didn't want to startle her. The woman seemed to have had a pretty boring childhood. She was the youngest of four, but even so had a terrible case of middle child syndrome. She wasn't the cutest, she didn't have the best personality, she wasn't athletic or that smartest. She had had nothing to make her stand out. So she'd practically spent her childhood going crazy trying to beat her siblings at something, anything, but never did. So she'd gone for weak points, but each time she did, another sibling would copy her and surpass her. So eventually she decided the best way to go about it was to go for one of the things they were already good at but focus on it alone, this had been academics as it was the only one she had a chance at. So she'd studied like crazy and came out on top of her class, sometimes her whole year. But even then, her family didn't care. A sister won an award for an artwork, another a sporting award in their last year at high school, and her family focussed on those instead. Even when their youngest was said to be a genius, one of the smartest people in the city. She'd given up on her family then, and they disappeared from the visions.

Erina wasn't sure how Alison ended up working for ShinRa, but one interesting thing she had learnt from them was, her age. She was eighteen, she should be in her last year at high school, not here, but here she was anyway. The girl wondered if she should creep her out and start asking about it, when to the woman she should have no reason to even know enough about her for those questions to possibly come out of her mouth.

After wasting time hesitating, she lost her courage, and held her tongue.

And soon after, the check-up was over and done with and with nary a word, Alison stood up, walked to the door, and left. It got locked up tight immediately afterwards.

"Damn it." Erina yelled. "Her reaction would have been fun at least." She pouted and laid back down on the freezing cold floor. It could have been a thing to pass the time, she reckoned it might have been fun bugging the crap out of her. Sighing, she let herself forget about it and forced herself to have a nap. Being alone in this cell was insufferable.

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><p>Another two days passed without incident. She managed to wake up early enough on both days so that she didn't wake up alone, as was becoming a common occurrence. Unfortunately there wasn't many opportunities to talk as Aerith spent about 90% of the time sleeping, and Ifalna was about the same herself. Though it made things that extra bit boring for her, she wasn't that surprised. The child was bound to end up not being able to take it all anymore. The rate of tests the mother and daughter went through had upped as of late. Similar to how Erina found the rate of experiments on her had lessened lately. Plus, Ifalna was still sickly, as she had been for the last couple months. As always, the girl joined in with her daughter and wished every day for her to return to good health. So far, nothing had changed. She wasn't getting worse at least, that was still something.<p>

The times where Erina was left alone was excruciating, they dragged on for what seemed like forever, the minutes felt like hours, and the hours, were an eternity. Perhaps this was punishment, she wasn't even that sure anymore. Maybe no one cared if she acted up, or attempted to escape again. Maybe they were more focussed on experiments that actually had a purpose. She was sure there was no point in what was happening to her, it was just Hojo taking advantage of the opportunity, sincerely because it was there and nothing more.

Erina blew out a sigh, and braided a strand of hair. She'd been alone for three hours, but to her it had felt like so much longer. Her stomach rumbled, her head pounded and her eyes burned. She was tired from a severe lack of sleep. Her sleep had been plagued with nightmares, and after some time of torturous attempts to return to sleep she gave up and crawled into a corner. She'd passed the time thinking back of the time before she'd met Rhapsody and his group. Back when she'd lived with Mari and her husband James. The couple who'd raised her for the first seven years of her life. She was upset to find how little she remembered of them. Even the memories of the other kids at school throwing rocks and their food at her were more vivid. She'd eventually given up on trying to force herself to recall the couple clearer than she did, and begun pondering how she'd ended up with the two of them. They were so far away from everything, with no connection to ShinRa whatsoever. She couldn't come up with a decent idea of how it could have occurred, so as always she decided what probably happened was some sane member of ShinRa had practically kidnapped her and tried to get her away from them. Somehow or another she had ended up where she had, simple as that. This theory made sense to her, since it was unlikely that it could have been anyone not from ShinRa, and it was incredibly unlikely to have anything to do with her parents, especially since her father did lack the knowledge of her existence.

Currently, she was stuck thinking about the nightmares that had woken her up. There were two, and as always followed the same plot. She'd wake up in the middle of the apocalypse, follow around this mysterious man with long hair, and eventually die. In the first one he'd done the deed himself. In the second someone had drowned her and he'd tried to stop it. And as always, she was absolutely convinced that she witnessed these dreams because just like everyone else did, her mind liked to torture her too.

The sound of something hitting the ground ripped her away from her thoughts and back into reality, bringing with it a sense of coldness as her mind reconnected with the fact that the floor beneath her was freezing. Erina lifted herself up into a sitting position, rubbing her shoulder which had gotten sore for being in an uncomfortable position for so long. Her eyes went to the door, where the sound had come from, to see a tray of food slip through a slot in the bottom of the door.

"Lunchtime." A gruff voice answered. She recognised it to be one of the guards.

"Yeah whatever." She muttered. That was obvious. She stared at the guck with contempt; all of it was a differing shade of ugly, disgusting green. She picked up the bottle of water that came with it and took a sip before commenting,

"It's green."

"And?" The guard had remained by the door, his tone made her imagine that he was grinning.

"It looks like poison, all of it."

He chuckled in response, taking her by surprise. She would have expected the man to be annoyed; to him she must seem like a stupid, grouchy kid, right?

"Yeah, how so?"

"It's green. And green is an evil colour." Erina answered simply, taking another sip of her water.

"And that makes it poison?"

"No, it makes it look like poison." She corrected him.

"Okay then? You going to eat it?" He sighed. She could tell that he wasn't irritated by her at all, in actuality he was finding her amusing.

"No, it's green." She spat, "its evil." She pushed it away from her and sat with her back to the wall, taking sips of water every few seconds.

For a moment, nothing happened, until she heard a loud thud sound. She turned her head to try to see what was happening outside through the open slot in the door, but saw nothing. Not like that was a surprise, it was a tiny opening in the bottom of the door; it was a stupid idea to try it.

"What are you doing?" Erina asked, guessing the guard must have made it, possibly by sitting down.

"I can't leave until you eat it." He admitted, with a sigh, followed up with a laugh. "I have to take it back."

"Gotta suck for you." She muttered; his presence didn't bother her at all. She didn't mind the guards, they were alright. Most were half decent people on the inside; they were just scary on the outside was all. They just had a problem with holding her wrist too tight when escorting her.

"You messing with me?"

"Perhaps." She shrugged, though he could not see through the wall and see her do it. Keeping him around was entertaining, if only a little.

After a minute or so of silence, her stomach rumbled loudly. Immediately afterwards, he burst out laughing.

"Just eat it, you're hungry aren't you?"

"And? If I refuse I refuse. I'm not eating green shit."

"Well, nice to know you've got a month on ya." He muttered. "But seriously, just eat, don't starve yourself. All that weird crap those creepy guys do must have a bad effect on you right? You should keep up your energy."

She raised an eyebrow, seems like he was a pretty nice guy. "I've got water, that's good enough. I can wait for later."

The guard let out a big sigh, and though she could not see, shook his head. "Just eat you stupid kid. Even green shit is better than nothing."

"Actually, I have to say nothing is better than that foul, repulsive green shit." She chuckled. She was trying to get on his nerves now. This conversation was better than nothing; she'd make it longer if possible.

There was a loud banging sound against the wall, she wondered if it was his head.

"Seriously kid, eat, then give me the tray, and then I can leave and we'll all be better off."

Erina took her time to make a reply, and in the mean time she gulped down the remaining content of her water bottle.

"I'll eat it if you let me out." She actually didn't feel like leaving that much, but she didn't feel like being left all alone again either. It'd been so long since she'd been outside; she found it to be a far better option.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

"Really?" He continued questioning.

"Yes, really." She giggled, he was sceptical, as you would be.

"Really?"

"YES! How many times do I have to repeat myself? I'll eat it if you let me out. Simple as that."

He hummed in thought. "Yeah alright, fair enough."

There was a pause.

"Wait what?" She exclaimed, purer shock running through her. She'd been half-joking when she'd said it, it was this man's job to keep her in the cell, she hadn't expected in her wildest dreams he'd actually let her out. "You're kidding right?"

"Do you really think I care if those creepy people lose an experiment? It's disturbing and inhumane. I hate being stationed here. Plus, it's pretty good darn fun to mess with them."

Erina felt herself grin, he was a pretty nice guy after all.

"So you'll really let me out?"

"Yes, I never denied that. Just, remember, eat that goddamn crap first." She frowned when he still seemed to be adamant on getting her to eat. If he was letting he out, clearly he didn't care about the time he got back, he just didn't want her to starve herself.

Erina went over to the tray and stared at it. She had no intention of actually eating it, so she messed with it some, making sounds that sounded like eating.

"You done?" The guard asked after she stopped.

"Yes." She made herself sound disgusted, as if the food had tasted absolutely terrible.

As she heard the door unlock, she picked up the tray, still laden with food, and stood up straight. The moment the door was open wide enough for her to see the guard, and there be a small open space next to him, she flung the tray's content right at his face, and before he had time to react, she dashed past him and raced down the hallway at full speed, towards the door that led to the stair case that would lead her to the ground floor.

She was sure he certainly wasn't following her, since the last thing she heard from him was him laughing like mad.

After she reached the staircase she sped the down the first ten stories, before slowing down to a walk for the rest. She was in a fit of giggles. She hadn't gotten out in so long, and that certainly wasn't how she was expecting it to be done.

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><p>At the bottom of the long staircase, Erina exited through a door that led to the outside. After this, she snuck around for the next few hundred metres, making sure no one laid eyes on her. This was the most crucial moment; it was where she was most likely to be seen by someone who could possibly take her back. When she decided she was far enough away, she entered the crowd and allowed herself to enjoy her surroundings.<p>

A small smile was present on her face, the city was pretty nice. It wasn't cramped and dark like in her cell; it was a massive wide open space. Tonnes of cars sped past, polluting the air, followed around by trucks and motorcycles. Buildings towered above her, and above that was a drab, overcast sky that threatened rain. People passed by her, pushing others around. They were little shitheads too rich for their own good. But she liked her environment enough that at the moment she honestly couldn't care less; soon, later she'd get into a bad mood because of them, but for now she was fine. She liked the grey; she didn't like bright natural colours. Especially green. Those bright colours were all terrible, and reminded her of the disgusting smell of dirt and trees, which in turn reminded her of the godforsaken mako tanks.

After walking around for a little over half an hour, she nabbed an apple from the top of some woman's grocery bag; she couldn't take her hunger any longer. It was refreshingly juicy, she hadn't eaten an apple in so long. She guessed they were her favourite food, since she was pretty picky food wise and she hadn't tasted many types of food thanks to her being locked up in the cell for so long. When she was finished with it she threw it in a bin close by and continued on her way. She was a ways away from the ShinRa building now; it was highly doubtful that anyone would recognise her and forcefully take her back.

She was making sure to stay in heavily populated areas, so she didn't have a repeat of last time, who was to say she'd be lucky enough to being saved this time round?

People didn't take much notice of her, too busy with their own crap. She liked that, she didn't want to be bothered by idiots right now. Obviously, going off all the other times she'd managed to get out, this wasn't going to last forever, so she intended to enjoy it was much as she could. Erina strolled around an area filled with cafes, eyeing at all the expensive looking food that she'd never even seen before. She wondered if any of them tasted nice, some looked mighty odd to say the least. After she passed by this there was a set of apartments and around another corner a ginormous restaurant. She could remember being told about it by Yoshioka's sister in a minute length conversation. Erina reckoned most people would brag about working in a place like that, but the woman had said it'd be awfully stressful and annoying working in a place like that. She said since they'd be so many customers you'd be running around non-stop, the hours were long as well apparently.

Erina had heard that Yoshioka and his sister had originally come from the slums, so she guessed that gave them a different view on things.

After passing the restaurant she turned a few corners and got back to a more heavily populated area, as the crowd had thinned where she'd been. After walking around for more than two hours, she took a rest on a bench. The sky was clearing up and blue was peeking through the grey clouds. She frowned; the sky was so much nicer grey. It would have been nice of it to have rained; she liked the smell of rain on concrete. Plus everyone would run around screaming for cover, and that'd be great fun to watch. Sadly, the sky would eventually turn to brilliant blue, and people would walk by her as normal as ever, more normally in fact, and probably in greater number, if the sky really did turn blue.

After the quick break, Erina got back up on her feet to start walking aimlessly around again, only after she took the first step, her head spun and it became difficult to see. She swiftly put her hand on the top of the bench to steady herself, but with each passing second she felt her forehead grow hotter, and she did not grow any less dizzy. In a confused panic, her heart rate sped up, making her breathe heavy. For a minute things went on like this, only with her gradually growing worse until it was unbearable. Eventually her body couldn't take it anymore, and her legs faulted. No one went over to help her, not even when she fell forward and smashed her head on the concrete.

And then suddenly, everything turned black.

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><p>Erina woke slowly, her head pounding. She was completely out of it, so much so that it was a full ten seconds before it registered what was in front of her.<p>

An infant sucking on her nose.

"Ahh!" She screamed, startled something bad. The tiny girl rolled onto the bed as Erina jolted upright. The girl blinked at her and stared blankly, the teen stared back confused as all hell. She was in a blue walled bedroom, a small one filled by the bed they were on, a wardrobe on one side and a bedside table on the other. To her right was the door, and to her left was a window covering almost all the wall.

The tiny girl's skin was almost white, like she'd never seen the sun. Her short hair was dark brown, so close to black it looked so in the shadows. It was done up in pigtails with pink ribbons. Her pudgy baby face was round, occupied with strawberry pink lips and crystal blue eyes. She was in a little black and white polka dot dress. She was adorable, she had to admit. After they stared at each other for the longest time, it occurred to Erina that something about her was familiar. Her dark brown hair with the perfect little curls, even the chin and nose, were just like Jess'. The obnoxious girl who the teen hadn't seen in years. Only, they weren't just a little like hers, they were exactly like hers. But the little girl's eyes, they weren't the same. They were different. A perfect crystal blue that shone brightly. Kind of like Rhapsody's.

Erina's eyes went wide and her mouth went to cover her agape mouth when she realised who she was staring at.

"Awake are you, sleeping beauty?" An ever so familiar voice asked, in a light, jovial tone.

The teens eyes darted to where the sound had come from, seeing a man standing by the doorway. Despite years without seeing his face, she knew who she was staring at. Light brown hair, bright blue eyes, an annoying little grin permanently resting on his features. It was Rhapsody.

"Rhap…?" She asked; just to confirm things. She hadn't seen him or any of his friends in the past four years, she was sure she would never see them again; they'd just became something she compared other annoying people to. She hadn't even known one of them was in the city.

He smiled warmly, "Long time no see, Snakey-chan." He called her by the nickname she was always called by his friends. He hadn't made it a habit like they had, it was a tad bit strange to hear it coming from him.

He crossed the room, and sat between her and the child on the bed. He picked up the little girl and placed her on his lap; she wrapped her arms around him best she could and snuggled closely.

He brushed a hand through Erina's hair, which had grown heaps since they'd last met. "You've grown a lot, I almost didn't recognise you. I'm glad I did though."

"Where am I, exactly?" She looked away from him, and picked at pieces of fluff on the bed spread.

"Charlotte's place. It seemed like the best place to go. Considering the situation last time we met, I didn't think a hospital was a smart idea." He sounded somewhat sad, but after all, last thing he'd heard of her was ShinRa claiming her their property and forcing him to leave. It was likely that no one here expected to meet again.

"Why would you take me to the hospital?"

Rhapsody looked at her like she was an idiot. "Do you remember the last thing that happened before you blacked out?"

She remembered walking around without a real place in mind, sticking to crowded areas and staying far away from the ShinRa building. Then, her face felt hot, when she tried to think further, there was nothing. "No, I don't think so." She shook her head. She couldn't even remember doing anything that merited passing out.

"Well it involves your head, plus concrete, I'm sure you can do the maths. I don't think you have a concussion, but I don't think I should let you leave immediately either, what on earth happened?"

"I was walking around, and I was perfectly fine, but then my head felt hot, really hot. That's all I remember. There's more I bet, but it's just not in there." She shrugged. She forgot things every now and then, it didn't bother her. Her visions tended to fill in the gaps, and she never forgot what happened in those, so she would survive.

There was a pause, which were spent with Rhapsody giving her a funny look. So in turn hers slowly turned to puzzled, she was about to question, but he beat her to it,

"What did they do to you? ShinRa I mean. They've done something right? They were talking like they were allowed to do whatever they wanted, and it was fine because they could get away with it." The tone of his voice she hadn't expected in the least, it was frantic and worried beyond belief. "I've never managed to get it out of my head, please, tell me!"

She stared blankly, wondering how to respond. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away again, pondering what exactly was easiest to explain. Because the truth was she barely, knew anything herself.

Erina started off by saying, "Honestly, any guess you could come up with is about as good as anything I could say." His expression showed clear as day that the explanation was no way near enough, so she did her best to explain the situation she was in. "They're experiments I guess, I'm not entirely sure what they're meant to do. I got told that other people have been put through them and ended up deteriorating; I know I've had a stronger than normal body since birth, so I think it's fine for me to go through them. They won't kill me. I'm sorry if that's not enough information I guess, but I just don't know what they're doing to me, or what the point of it all is. Frankly I'm starting to think that they're doing whatever the hell they are doing because to them I'm a needless spare."

She stopped there, because Rhapsody's expression changed. He looked like a mix between disgusted and hurt.

"They took you away for no reason then, if they've declared that you're a spare." He spat, "And how the hell is a person a spare anyway? Those science freaks are shitheads." The hurt on his face was gone by the time he finished speaking, replaced with nothing but anger.

For Erina, this was about the most emotional she'd seen him with her own eyes, he'd gotten very agitated in visions before, but in front of her he'd made a point out of keeping his cool. She figured if she acted emotional as well, he'd get even more emotional, and she wasn't in the mood to deal with an emotional person, actually, she was never in the mood to deal with an emotional person. So she responded as calmly as could be.

"When my mother was pregnant she had experiments done on her. They were to affect her son, that she had twins was an accident. The way the experiments affected me was not as perfect as they liked. But they were with him. That's about as much as I know about that. I just know that shortly afterwards someone took me away, and I ended up in that country town where we first met. I'm not even remotely sure how I got there, I've hoped that I could have visions that could give me the answer, but so far there's nothing, they cut out somewhere around when I was a month old and start-up again around the time I would've been three."

Rhapsody's face showed he was listening deeply to her words, and when she finished, no one said a word for the longest time. And after the quiet had had its fun, he shooed it away with the question,

"You have a brother?" His voice was fairly light in comparison to the rest of the conversation. Out of anything he could have asked about, that was what she'd been expecting it to be about the least.

She lightly slapped his cheek, scaring the toddler in his arms.

"Yes, so what?"

"It's just that you never mentioned him to any of us. You always told Jess that you were an only child."

"It's complicated, and I don't care about him in the least, he's a half-brother anyway. Why should I care?" She muttered.

"Just saying, who the hell is your mother, if she allowed her children to be experimented on? Who in their right minds would do such a thing?" He sounded horrified, not surprisingly.

"No one would, she completely lost it after someone very close to her died. A lot of crap happened after that, when the opportunity came around, she took it. I'll forever hate her for it, I can assure you. If she didn't, I wouldn't be in this mess. I'm not saying I'd be living a perfectly normal life considering the situation my parents were going through at that time, but it wouldn't be like this. I wouldn't be ShinRa's property. I'd actually be considered human."

Rhapsody gave her a sad look, before asking, "So who's your father then? What was he doing during all of this?"

"Dad doesn't know I exist. He knew my mother was pregnant, but he was sure that the baby was her husband's, of course, that's half-true. He didn't know there was more than one. No one saw the need to tell him, even when he was the only one who cared when she got really sick at the start of her pregnancy, and he was the one who was by her bedside. After we were born, he wasn't there; things got real complicated by then."

Again, there was a pause much like the previous one, and he ended it with another question,

"Your mother was married? Who to?"

Erina slapped him on the cheek again, scaring the toddler he was holding once again.

"A fuck tard who should go shove a burning hot branding iron down his throat."

"Oi, don't be so rude, she'll pick it up." Rhapsody scolded her, covering the girl who he was holding ears.

Erina rolled her eyes. "It's true though, that man should go die in a violent fashion. He's a horrible person, it disturbs me to think the woman who gave birth to me was married to him, and she even had a child with him as well."

"If she had a husband and all, what the hell was the situation with your dad, what happened there?" To say he was curious was an understatement. It had him seriously concerned.

Erina paused, and took a big breath in before letting it out in a sigh. She shook her head with a perturbed expression. "Frankly, I…don't want to know. Before she was married, there was sort of something between them, but nothing ever happened, they didn't even hug. I know he had feelings for her, and perhaps she did too, I've never been so sure. But she wasn't right in the head, and something made her snap and she decided to distance herself from him, and the way she did this was by marrying another man. I don't think she really felt anything for him, or maybe I'm just making that up because I find it easier to take in, I'm not sure. He snapped I guess; I know she cheated on her husband at some point with him, I've always been concerned whether it was consensual or not. Dad isn't the type of person to hurt another I think, from all my visions he seemed like a nice person. But my mother did want to stay away from him, sleeping with him is the exact opposite of that, so I don't know why she would do it. Though if she did ever feel something for him, maybe the remnants of those feelings were still there."

Rhapsody nodded, and for the longest time, there was silence.

"Can you tell me what has happened since then, since they took you away from us?"

Erina made a sound in her throat to say yes, and went on with that. It seemed he had decided to drop their past topic. He felt no need to hear more about it.

So the teen went on to tell him of the experiences she had had since ShinRa had taken her away. She mentioned how most of the time she got locked away in a cell designed for deadly criminals. She was experimented on (usually) a regular basis. During these experiments she was drugged to either paralyse her or sedate her. The drugs had a tendency to last a while. The experiments usually ended with her being put inside a mako tank. Initially it had stung something terribly, but her small body had adapted to the procedure, and now she felt nothing but annoyance at the stink of dirt. She didn't exclude mentioning how this had caused her to have a somewhat irrational hatred of the colour green.

She mentioned how some of the scientists had assaulted her on multiple occasions, the most prominent of those were two men called Brooke and Danic. She avoided saying anything about the rape attempts. She did mention though that a young woman from the science department had saved her the last time this had occurred. She was nicer than the others, but that didn't necessarily mean that she was a nice person. She talked about Ifalna and Aerith, a mother and daughter with whom she shared the cell with thanks to overcrowding. They were the most wonderful people she had ever met, and was sure she would ever meet. She was deeply saddened by their life situation, they deserved so much better.

She talked about Yoshioka, a Turk she had met who kept sneaking her outside for the heck of it; he was yet to get caught doing it. He was a half decent guy, though he unfortunately reminded her of some certain idiots she had once met, though with a slightly more serious personality.

Rhapsody was smart enough to know that Erina referred to him and his friends as he said this.

She told him how Yoshioka had saved her once, and had even bandaged her up afterwards. She wasn't very sure why the guy tried to look after her so well, she guessed it just meant he had a conscience. Unlike so many people she had met in her life. She also mentioned how he had an idiot for a sister.

She mentioned last two boys she had met recently, she wasn't very sure why she bothered to say anything about them; it'd hardly been a meeting. Maybe it was because she had seen their faces before, back when she'd still been with Rhapsody, and maybe it was because they were something different. She exaggerated when it came to telling him how the brunette had gone out of his way to annoy her, as she had each time she'd repeated the story. She commented on how the other boy's name sounded like angel, and said that he seemed nice, and nothing more.

"What is with you and angels?" Rhapsody sighed, grinning.

"Haven't a clue." Erina replied. "I just know I kind of took him by surprise when I started squealing about his name. And yes, I squealed."

Again, things turned silent. Erina frowned in annoyance at it, possibly he was expecting her to say more, but she had nothing more to say. So she started a new topic.

"So, what have you guys been doing, since we last saw each other?"

"My dad has been paying me to stay away from him." Erina gave him a strange look as he spoke; he acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. She was aware his dad had enough money to spare, but the idea was still crazy. "Charlotte got a job; she's working at a little café in another sector. She had the opportunity to work up on the plates, but she decided she'd rather live in the slums. Miku is back living in Wutai; her parents tracked her down two years ago and forced her to return. I heard she has a fiancé."

Erina recalled being told the girl had originally come from a rich family back in Wutai, and though she knew that certainly she was Wutanese, she had never believed the fact that her family was rich. Though the situation he had just said was normal for high-class Wutanese families. So it made her wonder if they really had spoken the truth.

Erina lowered her gaze a mite and watched he girl in Rhapsody's arms, who had since fallen asleep since their conversation had begun. "Hey, she's yours isn't she? And jess's to. She was pregnant when I left right?"

Rhapsody looked down at the little girl, and brushed stray locks of hair away her face. "Yeah." He was smiling, but it wasn't a happy one, it wasn't even a fatherly one. It was sad.

She wondered if she'd said something wrong, his reaction had her somewhat concerned. She did dislike these people, they were total idiots and it was Jess's fault that ShinRa had found her again, but she had spent two years of her life with them. They weren't nothing to her. So she needed to ask,

"Something happened to Jess, right?" She questioned in a serious tone. Worried something bad.

Rhapsody frowned, looked away, and said nothing in response.

"Rhap, tell me, something happened didn't it?" She refused to call him by his full name, since she'd slowly begun to dislike it thanks to a certain someone. The serious moment did nothing to stop it.

"She blamed herself you know, for what happened to you. She worried over it constantly." His eyes were downcast. "She became sick, and almost lost the baby. I was hoping that after they were born she'd get better, since she would have a reason to. But instead, she got even worse. She wouldn't do anything, she wouldn't get up, and she wouldn't look at anyone, not even her own newborn daughter. She just started to fade away before everyone's very eyes."

"Rhap, where is she?" Though she asked it, she had a feeling she already knew the answer to that deep down inside.

Without even a spot of emotion, the words passed through his lips, "Back in her home town, buried six feet under the ground."

A chill ran down Erina's spine. "She killed herself, didn't she?"

Rhapsody bit his bottom lip and avoided Erina's fearful eyes. "Yes." He sounded wretched.

Erina looked away as well, not wanting to look at someone who looked so miserable. This wasn't the boy she'd known all those years back. She felt terrible as well, because she had always thought what was between him and Jess was some stupid pointless teenage thing, and that the baby was the biggest accident ever. But seeing him like this, maybe that wasn't so, maybe they'd really loved each other, even at such a young age. Even when they were such mindless idiots.

Without a further word to her, Rhapsody stood up and carried his sleeping daughter out of the room, leaving Erina perfectly alone. If he'd wanted to make her feel bad for blaming them for what had happened to her, he'd done it.

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><p><strong>I think it was for the best that this happened instead of what I was planning to write, it means I will have more to write now, the time when she's thirteen is most difficult for me since it's not very content heavy. But certain things need to happen before I can leave it behind. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to go about making those things happen.<strong>

**I have this thought going around my head saying, 'you retard, you've been trying to introduce more canon characters, so you introduced more OC's, the hell is wrong with you?'**

**Sorry about that.**

**Reviews shall be much appreciated and shall help with my sanity.**

**Jya ne,**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	13. A question with no answer

**(12,679 words) I'm am so freaking sorry for the lack of updates, it's been almost a year, I know. I've gone into my senior years and have no time at all to write. I've had no breaks from assignments at all since first term, it is just ridiculous. So I've tried to give you guys a long chapter to make up for it. I hope it's not bad, I've barely written anything this year.**

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><p><span><strong>Wings of Regret <strong>**Chapter 13:**

** A question without an answer**

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><p>Erina sat at the head of the bed, staring out the window with half closed eyes and a frown on her features. It was dark out, because little to no sun could reach the slums, and it was too late for that little sun to reach the tiny building she was currently in.<p>

It'd been a few hours since she'd awoken, by the little girl who'd been oddly enough sucking on her nose. She'd then found that Rhapsody had brought her here, after he'd found her unconscious up on the plates. It was Charlotte's house she was told, but she was yet to see the woman. She could only deduce from her talk with the boy that she was over at her job at the current time. Rhapsody had left her and she was yet to see him again, so with nothing to do in the strange house, Erina had decided to stare out the window to see if it would help pass the time. Truly, it did little, but it was an improvement from her usual. Out this window, she could see everything outside; her vision only obscured by blinds which she could move out of the way, not steel bars. She knew the slums were a mess, but this went above and beyond her expectations. It was a wreckage, a ruin. She spotted two buildings without rooves, and another missing the front door. All of which she noted were occupied. Huge chunks of metal littered the ground that looked like they were from some old construction project abandoned years ago. There were kids playing on top of them and everything like they were a playground. She didn't know whether she should feel sad for them or go punch someone up on the plate's face.

She grew tired of looking, needless to say, and averted her eyes when the details of the outside were too much. She assumed there were plenty of bad people down here, criminals and whatnot, but she knew there were plenty up on the plates too, ShinRa included. The people up there were conceited snobs who should all go die, but the people down here were probably a lot nicer. Seeing as they had nothing, then they were probably so much more grateful for every little thing they were given.

It was horrible that they were the ones who were suffering, but when she thought about it, if their situations were switched with those up on the plates, then they'd probably end up the same. That wasn't a solution in the end.

Bored of the subject, Erina turned her eyes to the door on the opposite end of the room. It was a tiny square room, but seeing as she'd stayed on the bed the entire time it felt so far away. She bit her lip and wondered if she should leave. There wasn't any use in staying in the little bedroom, she was bored she had to admit, and maybe if she got out of the room she could leave the house too. She wasn't as unhappy as she had expected she would be on seeing Rhapsody again, but she didn't want to stay long. She was still off put by what he'd said about Jess, how she'd killed herself after blaming herself for everything that had happened. She wanted it out of her head, and that stupid boy was only going to make it worse. So certainly, she wanted to leave before Charlotte came home. Even if only two had an opportunity to see her out of the original four, she still wanted to be gone.

She lowered her feet to the ground softly, and tiptoed to the door, she twisted the knob slowly so as to not make a noise. Though she knew it wasn't so, she couldn't help but feel like a prisoner. Perhaps it was the default setting in her brain after spending so much time locked up in a cell. When she had the door open she peeked outside, just a mite and inspected the hallway she had found herself in. It stretched to the right, only leading to more doors and a dead end, to the left an open room. She took one step out and noticed very clearly Rhapsody sitting on a chair in the kitchen, drink in hand staring at her almost lazily, with the slightest of grins forming on his countenance. She glared back at him, but it only made his tiny grin form fully into one, and a strange light flare up in his eyes.

"Curious were you?" He asked.

"Of what?" She spat, in no mood to talk.

"Of the outside." He laughed.

She continued to glare as she strode into the room. It was a small living area, with a couch off to the side and a small glass table in the centre. In a nook in the corner was a tiny brown and white patterned square kitchen, tinier then the white square that made up the rest of the section. It was very basic the whole place, the only area that wasn't bland and empty was the small space behind Rhapsody which was littered with light brown cupboards.

"There's not much outside though." She muttered as she looked around. There wasn't even any television or book of any kind.

"Charlotte doesn't care much for appearance, especially when it comes to where she lives. She's no interior designer that's for sure. She's fine with this and that's about that." Rhapsody sighed, and took a swig of his drink. From the smell she could tell it was alcohol.

Erina sat down on the old deteriorating couch; it sank under her meagre weight. She eyed it with distaste, it had certainly seen better days, and it certainly didn't help it being the colour of dirt.

"So where's the baby?" She asked, without actually having any interest in the matter, she was merely talking as she wondered when she'd be allowed to leave.

"In her room asleep."

"What's her name anyway?"

He didn't give her an answer straightaway, instead he averted his eyes and fiddled with the bottle in his hands.

"Rhap…?" She raised an eyebrow, curious. "What's her name?"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a bit before finally answering. "Jessica."

"She's named after her mother?" Erina chuckled, but she didn't think the emotions she felt fitted that. She guessed it seemed like something he would do. He was clinging to the past, one he didn't want to let go of. "Huh." She mumbled before getting up.

Rhapsody's eyes followed her as she paced the room, not noticing that the girl was in fact eyeing the front door over at the other end of the room.

"Hey, can I leave?" Erina asked, lazily without interest.

"Why so soon? Not interested in seeing Charlotte?"

"Not really, I wasn't interested in seeing you either." She grumbled.

He laughed and drank some more of his drink; he clearly didn't intend to keep up further conversation.

She paused in her pacing and stared at him with her arms crossed, frowning. "You know sometimes I reckon you're a freak."

"Why so?" He inquired, still laughing.

"Because you're fucking weird." In response, he laughed some more.

"Well, I see you're as cynical as ever, and your language is more colourful too."

She blew out a sigh and spat. "Oh shut up."

He smiled and stifled another laugh. "Still want to leave?"

She eyed him oddly. "Obviously."

"Nah. I reckon I'll make you wait a little longer."

"The doors right there," Erina pointed to it with one hand, "I can easily go leave right now."

"Don't underestimate my ability to jump over this counter. I'll stop you if you try." He grinned; she had the most horrible feeling that he was being serious. So she returned to the dirty couch and sat down in defeat.

"You can have a drink if you want." He offered as he threw the empty bottle he'd finished in the bin.

"Don't want one." She replied, grumpily.

He didn't attempt to talk for a while, so she made the hopeful assumption that he wasn't going to speak again. But it was nothing more than her being hopeful in the end.

"Why do you want to leave anyway? Won't they catch you again?"

"Yeah, I've gotten out before, and they've always managed again, it just repeats itself endlessly. I don't think there's a point in trying to hide."

"But you haven't gone to the slums before have you? Maybe they won't find you here."

"Still, I don't want to stay here." She muttered. She felt like she was a prisoner here too. She didn't want to see Rhapsody or anyone associated with him. She didn't like the idea that she wasn't allowed to leave, it meant that just like the cell she was trapped, locked up. It was stifling.

"Please Erina, don't leave again." This time there was a sense of urgency edging his voice. "I get that you don't like me, but I don't want to know that you're going through hell when there's a chance that I could prevent it. "

Erina glanced at him, and saw the determination in his eyes. He didn't want her to leave at all, saying he wanted to make her wait was a lie. He was scared what would happen to her the moment she left them again, he wanted to stop her being experimented on, he wanted to stop her being abused and locked up, he wanted her to be somewhere where she'd be treated as a human being. She knew and accepted this, but still, she still wanted to be anywhere but here.

"Hey, want to see something interesting?" He questioned, he was making a bad attempt of staying calm, in his tone and on his face it was clear, he was about to break.

"Interesting?" She repeated the word, wondering what on earth he meant.

"Yeah, interesting. I'll show you, that's if you want to see it."

Seeing as she'd already grudgingly accepted that she was defeated, and she took him seriously when he said he'd beat her to the door, she saw no harm in finding out what this interesting thing was.

"Okay then." She answered somewhat unsurely, but Rhapsody was happy to hear the words anyway.

He didn't speak further but left the kitchen and entered the hallway, opening the first door on the left. Erina had followed after him and saw inside was a bedroom much like the one she'd woken up in earlier. She gave him a look and frowned, she didn't see what was so interesting. It was almost pitch black as the blinds were drawn and it didn't look like it'd been inhabited recently; at least the other room had signs that showed it had.

"What's supposed to be so-"

"Shhh." He put a finger to his lips and hushed her. "Here look." He strode forth before he knelt by a woolly mat in the centre of the room, and lifted up one edge, revealing a small square shaped piece of wood that was joined to the floor. She didn't understand what she was staring at until she knelt by him and noticed rusted hinges. When he lifted it up and showed the opening in the ground and the ladder underneath he proved what she'd been thinking. It was a hidden door.

"Of course you have something like this here. You lot seem like you'd be interested in this crap." She sighed; she spoke as if she was the older one, and referred to Rhapsody and the others as children. Even if her words didn't imply that entirely, he heard it in her tone. He smiled and didn't comment on it. It was just how she was, he accepted that. He liked her anyway.

"You want to see what's inside?" He asked, sincerely curious.

As she'd already decided that she was defeated, Erina saw no harm in the venture. "Sure, why not I guess."

He was gladdened by her answer, even if it was clear to him she still didn't care, or find the hidden room as interesting as he did. He flipped the mat off and opened the door fully and let it hit the carpeted floor of the rest of the room. He entered the small hole, climbing down the short ladder. It was at an angle, and only had a few rungs, but she noted that it was long enough to point to the room below of being a decent height. She'd been wondering if she'd hit her head on the roof, but she was sure that tiny little her had no chance, because not even Rhapsody would.

After he'd gotten off the ladder she followed after him. The room was bigger than she had expected. That it was dark was obvious, but it was just light enough for her to make it out thanks to a small window that led outside. It was a tiny rectangular thing; she could tell that from the outside it would look like it was on the bottom of the house, as she could see the dirt of the ground from the bottom of the window. It was right at the roof of the basement room. Her main problem was that the window was barred.

The room itself was also rectangular, and large, it must have been about the size of the rest of the house and then some. At its centre was a couch, still dirt coloured like the one in the living room, but not as ruined. By it was an old rusted metal bed with a yellowed mattress and a few blankets. No pillows. On the bed's right was a coffee table, about the same height as the one upstairs, but wooden and not glass. To the left of the room was a large book case that stretched across the entire room, all filled with books. When she took a proper look she found that the bookcase was built into the wall, and not pressed against it.

On the room's far side were two doors, both of which she inspected. The right one led to a small walk in wardrobe all made of deep brown, almost black wood. The left door led to a bathroom, which against the norm she'd seen for the rest of the house, it looked new. It was shiny and white, without any mould or cracked tiles. It had a bath to the left and a shower at the far side. Closest to her just before the bath was a toilet and sink. It was a small shower with patterned glass doors which would blur the image of the outside form the inside, or vice versa, but the bath was a large one. When she left the room and re-entered the other basement room she noticed that across the room near the ladder, something she'd missed before. There was a tiny fridge, which was connected to a power point but not turned on; however, when she flicked the switch it seemed to work fine. There only happened to be no food in it.

It was only a basement, but from its set up it was like a whole house under a house. All it really needed was an oven and some cupboards and it'd be fine. When she turned back around to face Rhapsody she saw he was sitting on the couch in a reclining position.

"It's interesting isn't it?"

"I guess. I suppose I just didn't expect it to be this size." Erina answered as she ended up at the bookcase. She didn't read, but she'd like to. She wouldn't lie she had an interest in books. Her main problem was that her ability to read was horrible. She'd only attended school for two years, she'd been with Rhapsody and his lot since she was seven until she was nine, and since then she'd been imprisoned by ShinRa. Still, she'd heard about people learning to read from books, so she was curious if that could work for her.

"You can stay here you know." Rhapsody started up his argument. "There's plenty here for you, and the sound's pretty cut off from upstairs. You could do whatever you wanted and no one would hear, and you wouldn't be able to hear upstairs either. It'd be calming in a way I suppose. If you don't like being surrounded by others. Plus you wouldn't have to hear anything whenever Charlotte brings someone home."

"What?"

"It's annoying. It doesn't happen often but that doesn't change anything." He was stifling a laugh with his hand. "Though it makes me worry when Jess gets older, I don't really want her hearing it. But it's a small house after all. Not much I can do.

Erina had pouted when he'd said 'Jess', the girl knew he was talking about his daughter, but even so, it put up the mental image of her mother instead, and it made her uncomfortable.

This did not go unnoticed. He smiled sadly and apologised. "Ah, sorry. You wouldn't be used to that hey? Charlotte keeps doing that with letters to Miku, since she hasn't lived with us for years so she can't stand it either. But it's just normal for us two, so we don't really think about it I guess."

"Something normal for once." Erina muttered. She hadn't been near his group for a long time, but she recalled that Miku had been annoyingly weird. The fact that she was weirded out as something was oddly calming. She wondered if being away from her nutcase friends had given her some sanity.

Rhapsody gave her a shaky laugh, and asked. "How about Sica then?"

"Sica?"

"As a nickname for little Jessica. It's a little odd; I don't suppose you'd associate it with Jess would you? It'd erase any confusion about them having the same name too."

"Fair enough." She muttered in agreement. She continued walking back and forth along the bookcase, trying to read the names of the books with little success. Some she could tell were novels, others were non-fiction. But she had more trouble with those names; they were far more difficult to read.

With her attention diverted, she didn't notice Rhapsody get up and leave the room, or him closing the wooden door behind him. In fact she didn't notice time passing at all.

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><p>After he'd left Erina found a light switch and had turned it on, since then she'd found a few books that had sparked her interest. Admittedly with her terrible reading ability this mainly amounted from the colour of the spine and the shape of the text written along it. She was easily able to recognise the difference between novels and non-fiction books from the set out of their covers. The novels usually had a picture, that was either straight-forward and easy to understand, like an image of a few friends, or more abstract. One of the books of which she was sure was fiction had half a hand and transparent eyes strung up on a wispy blue backdrop. She wasn't sure what it was meant to be about, but she got an overwhelming cold feeling from it. The non-fiction books were always straight forward and their topic easy to understand. They would always have a picture, or a collage of them, featuring the subject of the book. One she found was about endangered animals, and another about forests and another about something scientific, which after struggling to read the title she knew it was about recent scientific discoveries. But the sight of the trees and test tubes made her put them back. They made her uneasy and sick.<p>

She'd taken a handful out, but having tired herself of the task she'd been returning them back to their original place, when the wooden door opened.

Erina didn't bother to look, knowing it would have to be Rhapsody. She wasn't actually aware that she had been in the basement for over an hour. The first clue she had that a substantial amount of time had passed was when she heard a shout, higher in pitch to what she could have ever expected to hear.

"Ah!? Holy crap!" A voice that certainly didn't belong to Rhapsody cried out as they stumbled down the small ladder and into the room.

Tilting her head and flicking her hair over her shoulder Erina looked to see who it was with minor curiosity. Before she had time to question she was tackled into a violent hug and almost knocked off her feet.

"Snakey!" Her attacker howled in a mix of happiness and shock.

Annoyed, Erina shoved the person off of her, finding it to be Charlotte, the person who she'd been hoping to avoid.

The girl in the four year gap since they'd last met didn't look very different. She was slightly taller, and not a skinny little stick either, but at a more healthy weight. She closely resembled the sixteen year old Erina had once known. The major difference was that her hair, which had been dyed a hot pink last time they'd seen each other was a messy mix of brown, black and green. It was substantially longer too, reaching to the small of her back, much like Erina's own stunning straight black locks. She was still in her work clothes, which were nothing but a blue stripped top, a black mini skirt and a white apron.

"Oohh, I never expected to see you again! After Rhapsody and Jess said they took you away I expected we had no way to get into contact with you again!" The poor girl was over the moon. It wasn't as if Erina had either liked them or been nice to them, but possibly they'd all felt somewhat responsible for what happened to her, and seeing her in the skin was a massive relief for them.

"Didn't really expect to see you again either." The younger girl said with far less enthusiasm. It wasn't a good thing for her as it was for them.

"What's been happening to you anyway? Nothing bad? Oh, it's bad, it's bad isn't it?" She had genuine worry in her tone, but as Erina had already explained to one of them her situation, she couldn't be bothered to do so again.

"Nothing much…" The younger girl tried to look away, hoping she could end the conversation faster.

"Oh don't talk like that." Charlotte grumbled. "It's just so helpful isn't it?" She asked sarcastically.

Erina glanced back at her, but made no verbal reply.

The older woman sighed. "Ah, what's the use in expecting you to be any different? You don't look too much different anyway. You're still heaps short. Your hairs longer though." She chuckled and ran her hand through the black strands. "But I guess that's not the only way you've grown either eh?" This time her tone had hints of annoyance in it.

Confused, Erina raised an eyebrow. "Eh? What?"

"I mean seriously…" Charlotte poked the younger girl's chest. "You're bigger than me, what are you a C?"

Instantly realising what she'd meant by 'grown', Erina wrapped her arms around her chest and backed off. "Oh well I'm sorry if I develop fast, it's not my fault! I don't even want big boobs anyway." She blushed a deep shade of red and averted her eyes.

In response to this, Charlotte smiled broadly and laughed her head off. "Hah, I'm only messing with you. I don't give a crap. I'm fine with being flat; they don't get in my way that way." She grinned. "What's your problem with them anyway? They're not big enough yet to get in your way."

The young girl grimaced at the use of 'yet'. "I just don't want them getting any bigger."

"Yeah, why so?"

"Well…that'd be…kinda attention grabbing…" She forced out, flushing profusely.

Charlotte bit her bottom lip to try and stop the laugh that wanted so badly to come out, but with little success as the laugh ripped itself out of her chest anyway. "What!?" She doubled over with laughter and shook her head. "Man, that's nuts. A lot of girls kinda like that you know? It makes things easier for them."

"Well I'm not most girls then." Erina spat and glared at the other.

"Hey, I never said most. But they exist even so. I'm not insulting you." Charlotte recovered from her fit and straightened herself up. "Just be glad you're so short. You look like a little kid if you ignore them, most people won't bother with you. So try to stay short." The woman gave her the little bit of advice before moving to return upstairs.

"Hey, I can make you dinner if you want. I'm sure there's food in the fridge to spare. Stay awhile and we can talk more."

With that she disappeared upstairs, and shut the door behind her. Erina would have rejected the offer had her stomach not been rumbling so badly. She'd only had an apple all day. She'd refused to eat the food she was given in the cell on account of it being green. She felt stupid now for doing it. Her stomach was eating itself.

* * *

><p>Dinner was a small meal that consisted of toast and eggs. She'd been given some sweet tasting tea that Rhapsody had scavenged from the cupboard. She didn't talk to either of the duo; instead she distracted herself by watching the toddler across from her, who'd been starting at her intently. She half expected that if she was to go near her again, she'd start sucking on her nose like she had earlier.<p>

She learned that Rhapsody had already explained to Charlotte everything she had told him during their first talk. It only helped to increase the girl's worry. She'd expected bad, but hearing of the abuse from the scientists and the fact that she was only valued as a spare went above what she'd thought up. The fact she had a brother went completely over the girl's head, unlike it did with Rhapsody. It wasn't a piece of information Erina liked to talk about. Especially since she couldn't even see him as being related to her.

They let her go without making her answer any questions. She wished they'd let her leave the house, but as they clearly didn't want to do that, she returned to the basement and sat on the couch down there, with her knees drawn close to her chest. She'd decided to wait for an opening, possibly late at night, to be able to leave.

* * *

><p>Erina stayed awake, with her knees drawn close to her, till past midnight. There was a clock on the wall which she was sure was ahead of time, but she'd compared it to the one on the wall in the kitchen at dinner, so it didn't seem to be completely out of whack. The clock read 12:40. She knew from what Rhapsody had told her when she'd first came down here that sound didn't particularly travel up and down the two floors. This meant that if he and Charlotte were asleep, she wouldn't be able to determine so with her ears. But she was sure even so that they'd both gone to sleep some time ago, even if she couldn't hear the sound itself, she felt the vibrations, movement from the floor and whenever someone walked down the hallway, or opened a door. Everything was still; she must be the only person still awake, as she'd been intending to be.<p>

She decided it was now or never. Yes it was better than the cells, but she didn't want to stick around these people. She just plainly didn't like them, they were annoying and she had no patience for them. Maybe they sincerely cared for her but they only reminded her of bad things. It was their fault that ShinRa was able to relocate her, and it was her fault that one of them had killed themselves. She couldn't believe the idea of someone killing themselves for her, but she didn't doubt Rhapsody, or his story. He was an idiot certainly, but nothing about him pointed to him ever being a liar.

It was better for the lot of them if she left, it was better that they had nothing to do with her at all. Anyone was.

The teenager slipped off the couch and tiptoed over to the ladder. It was sturdy and didn't make any loud creaking noises when she gradually climbed up it. When she opened the wooden door however, it made one, a loud one. She flinched and bit her lip, pausing to see if anyone had noticed. No one was in the room where the little hidden door was located, and she couldn't hear any sounds at all beyond those outside. She assumed that Rhapsody was sleeping in the same room as his daughter, so she couldn't blame him not noticing. But she found it idiocy that Charlotte hadn't tried to be careful by sleeping in this room for the night. Surely the duo must have known what the younger girl was planning. Her reluctance to hang around them wasn't something she'd been trying to hide. She wanted out, and she'd do that when they weren't looking. They were creating a huge opening for her right now; did they think she'd be too scared to escape late at night when it was pitch black? Because she was young perhaps? Or because they thought she was terrified of going back to ShinRa? Either way, they had misread her character. She just wanted out of this tiny little house, she didn't care for anything beyond that at the current time.

She clambered out of the hole in the floor and shut the door gently and fixed up the mat she'd moved out of place to make it look like she was still in there. It didn't matter if they fell for it or not, she'd be gone before the morning when they woke. She just wanted to be careful.

She took a look around the room, making certain that no one was in there with her. When it was definite that she was alone, she headed for the door. She opened it as gently as the other one, and inspected the dark hallway. She'd been correct, no light was on in the house and she could hear quiet snores from a room to her left. They were all asleep. Gladdened by this, Erina tiptoed to the front door, and had to stop herself from swinging it open, instead she pushed it open a little and crept out before she softly closed it behind her. Once out, she made a run for it, to put as much distance between herself and the house as possible.

It was dark, very dark. But every now and then, she saw lights, either from houses or street laps that were god knows how old. She supposed that they were meant to make a path, but most were broken, and only a few remained on. It was enough to light her path however, so she kept on her way, increasing the distance. She wasn't sure where she was going exactly, not that she did have a place to go. She didn't know where anything was, she'd never been to the slums before, she'd never really intended to go to them. She didn't like the people on the plates, the cocky shitheads they were, but she was content roaming around the plate whenever she got out. Down here in the slums, it was just depressing. Everything was broken and needed to be replaced. Sure she could see how some places were able to survive fine, but after seeing multiple houses sans a roof, she wondered how people lived here at all.

She'd passed quite a few areas, the scenery, or what she could see of it, had changed more than once, so she was sure she'd crossed over into another sector on more than one occasion. She'd been walking awhile, but she wouldn't be able to name an exact time. An hour or two perhaps, she wasn't good with time. Minutes may have well been hours to her, they always were in the cell, especially so when she was alone.

She passed by some larger buildings, though she wasn't sure what they were in the dark, but she'd have to admit she wasn't sure if she knew that they'd be in the light either. With only two years of schooling and four years locked up, it didn't do well for one's knowledge of things. She could tell the building closest to her had a section that went higher than the rest of the building. The whole building was a rectangular shape, but the long section was square and only took up a very small section of space. She didn't understand the use of it, and when trying to deduce a reason for the strangely shaped building, she'd stopped without realising she had. Upon noticing she sighed at herself and kept on her way, increasing her distance even more. If she could still see the building during the day she'd try to figure it out, but for now there was no use, it was simply just too dark.

Eventually she stumbled upon a small children's playground. Considering how tired she was, and how sore she was from walking aimlessly for so long, she climbed atop the oddly shaped object at its centre using a ladder. The ladder went inside the stranger half orb, and led to a slide on another side of the object. Erina, however, went up onto the very top, and fell asleep. She'd drained herself from staying awake for so long when she didn't even have the energy to do that, all the walking had drained her all the more. When she shut her eyes she crashed, falling right away into a deep sleep.

* * *

><p>In the early hours of the morning, before the sun could rise, Erina was awoken by quiet footsteps nearby. Rousing slowly, without lifting her head up, she spotted just out of the boundaries of the playground, a man walking around. He didn't look to have a set path; he was merely walking around aimlessly like she had. She couldn't see him very well, but she was able to tell that he was young and that he was carrying something around. A better word she discovered after watching him for a tad bit longer was that he was eating something. It was bread she thought, going off the shape of it. She wasn't sure what to be more confused about, that he was wandering around at this time, or that he was eating at this time.<p>

She continued watching him until he started to walk off; at that time she straightened herself up and sat in a sitting position atop the peculiar object she'd rested upon. It wasn't any lighter, so she still didn't know what exactly it was. But the movement attracted his attention, and her eyes made contact with a pair of familiar soft hazel ones.

"Ara?" A familiar voiced questioned, overflowing with surprise.

Shocked at hearing the fake name she averted her eyes and hoped he would think he got the wrong person and would leave her alone. She hadn't noticed in the dark that it was Yoshioka who she'd been staring at. If it'd been lighter maybe she would have noticed properly his brown hair and that godforsaken hair lick that wouldn't do what it was told ever.

"Hey, I know it's you. Screw hiding your eyes are freaking torches you know?" The man entered the playground and strode right up to the strange object of which the slide exited. From his vantage point he could clearly see the chocolate brown eyes that had allowed him to so easily spot her. "What on earth are you doing down here? How'd you get out actually? That's what I'd like to know." He was rather curious to be true, but she wasn't interested in talking. Truly of course, she never was, but she understood she didn't have much of a choice in this situation. He was stubborn like Rhapsody, but perhaps more so. She liked him better however, so sticking near him didn't bother her as much.

"I convinced a guard to let me out yesterday." Erina admitted.

Yoshioka grinned and raised an eyebrow. "Really? Well I always knew those guys aren't as bad as the stupid lab coated idiots. But I'm kinda surprised you've been out for over a day. How'd you end up in the slums anyway?"

"Well apparently I fainted." She declared, acting as if her sentence had no flaw.

He made a face. "Apparently you fainted…" He repeated her words, wondering what he was missing.

"I fainted, and someone brought me here" She explained. "An idiot too. He wouldn't let me leave."

Yoshioka wasn't sure whether to grin or be worried, so both were present on his face as he spoke. "You're okay though aren't you?"

"Yeah, it's fine. I know him; I just haven't seen him since ShinRa found me. But I didn't want to see him again either."

He sighed in relief. He'd been worrying that someone had tried to harm her, finding it'd been quite the opposite, he was glad. "You could've stayed with him. There's nothing wrong with him is there? If he'll keep you safe then that's good isn't it? You won't find too many ShinRa agents around here, and even if you do I'll doubt they'll have any connections to the Science Department. You'll be safe for a while. Don't you want that?"

"I still don't want to see him though." She grumbled.

"But there's nothing wrong with the situation. Wouldn't you rather be safe then be abused by those two again?" She knew by 'those two' that he meant Brooke and Danic. He'd been the one to save her the first time it'd gotten really bad, the first time Danic had tried to rape her. He was obviously disgusted with them to the point that he didn't want to say either of their names.

She didn't like how Yoshioka was speaking to her, convincing her to go back. She didn't want to and that was final. So she wondered if saying this was going to help her case.

"He's an illegitimate son of President ShinRa, and his girlfriend killed herself shortly after giving birth because she blamed herself for what happened to me. They remind me of bad things, so simply put, I don't want to go near them."

His response to this, was that there wasn't one. Yoshioka was speechless, he'd been taken aback to the point he wasn't sure what he could say.

"That guy has illegitimate children….?" He questioned the first half of what she'd told him.

"He's convinced he has multiple siblings. He doesn't think very highly of his dad as you can see. He's been messing with ShinRa too from the sounds of things; he told me that his dad was paying him to stop annoying him. Makes you wonder what that implies."

Yoshioka frowned and scratched the nape of his neck. "Sorry to hear that a friend of yours killed themselves though." He got off the subject before they were distracted. "It's a shame too, dying after having a kid. Now the little guy's gotta grow up without a mother."

"She's not my friend." Erina corrected him. "They were four people I knew, I met them when I was seven. One's dead, one's in Wutai, and two are here and I just happened to run into them. Simple. It doesn't mean we're friends and it doesn't mean I'm going back."

The Turk grimaced at her lack of emotion as she spoke. To him it looked like she truly didn't give a second thought about them. To be perfectly honest, she cared somewhat, and it did upset her that one of them was dead. But she didn't like them, so that was why she was speaking so easily of the subject.

"You want to come with me then? My apartment's near here." He disliked the idea of leaving her alone period, so he of course didn't want her being all alone in the early morning in the middle of nowhere with god knows who lurking about.

She eyed him oddly. "Why?"

"So you can stay somewhere for the night. You must be heaps tired. You're still a kid after all. I have food too. I expect you're hungry too. Even if those guys fed you at their place I know the Science Department aren't giving you enough, you need some more meat on your bones."

Frowning, the girl conceded. "Fine, whatever." That she was tired and hungry was perfectly true. She assumed where ever he lived to be small, but it was better than the cold cell, and it was better than Rhapsody's place on the account that Rhapsody didn't live there. To make it easy for her to reach the ground, rather than stumbling about for the ladder in the dark, she jumped onto the slide and slid down.

Yoshioka gave her a small smile and went off in a random direction, of which she assumed his apartment was in.

"Hey, just a question, but I'm about thirteen aren't I? Doesn't that make me a teenager, not a kid?"

When he looked at her face, he chuckled. She looked like an innocent little kid, completely clueless. "What's with the un…you know what, never mind." He sighed. He was going to ask why she was asking him and didn't already know her own age. But then he reminded himself that being locked away had its bad points, not knowing her age exactly was one of them. "Teenager, kid, it's all the same. We're just calling you guys that to give you a sense of being better I suppose. Most of that lot are just as immature as kids, they just happen to look like adults."

"A lot of adults are as immature as kids; they're just older on the outside." Erina pointed out with a pout.

Yoshioka grinned when he realised she was only saying that because he'd called her a kid. It'd slipped out of his mind how much she hated it. But it was the truth really, whether she liked it or not. In being so cynical she was in a way immature. She wanted people to act one way, and the moment they didn't they were an idiot, or horrible. Not that he could blame her for being so negative, she'd lived her life being treated horrifically.

She dropped the argument and started on another one. "Hey, girly?"

"Yeah, what?" He asked, giving her a quick look to again notice a quizzical look on her features.

"What are you doing out at this time?"

He snorted and sighed. He hadn't expected her to pick up on how weird it was. "Couldn't sleep."

"So you got up and walked out of the house…wow, genius." She muttered sourly.

"Hey, a lot of people do it. Just not so late I guess." He forced a smile but shook his head with yet another sigh. She didn't get the most simplest of things sometimes, how could he expect her to understand such a flawed habit?

"Also, what's with the bread?"

He looked at the half eaten slice in his hand, he hadn't eaten any of it during the entire conversation.

"Oh yeah, I got hungry."

"Because that's totally going to help you get back to sleep. Utter genius." She congratulated him sarcastically.

* * *

><p>The apartment building was a small building in the edge of the sector, it was a little run down but in better condition than some places she'd seen. The apartment itself was just as small as she'd imagined. When they entered she found herself in a kitchen that combined itself with the dining room, having the table connected to the wall. It was only enough for three, but given the rest of the apartment, that seemed silly and pointless to her anyway. The kitchen had an open layout and was practically shoved into a corner of the lounge room, a layout that reminded her of Charlotte's house. She would have been annoyed at that, had the place not been furnished far better. Even though he lived in the slums, she knew Yoshioka could afford far better, being a Turk. She supposed he only stayed here because he'd grown up here, and was used to it. The plates were foreign. The lounge room had a red couch and a small decorate coffee table, laden with an assortment of objects that were completely random and rather out of place. A flat screened TV was connected to the wall, giving the place a modern look. It was a millions times better than Charlotte's bland home.<p>

He sat on the couch and rested, but curiously Erina looked down the tiny archway at the left corner of the room. Inside she found the bed room which contained nothing more than a single bed and a bedside table. A wardrobe was to her right at the feet of the bed, and to her left was a door. Inside she found was the bathroom, a small one with a miniscule square shower and a toilet besides the sink.

The whole place was better for her eyes than Charlotte's, but he hadn't been kidding when he'd said it was small. All the expensive appliances did little to mask that fact.

She headed back into the lounge room and found Yoshioka half asleep on the lounge. She poked his cheek to see if it'd wake him. Luckily, he was yet to completely fall asleep so it worked on the first try.

"Huuh, oh yeah…Ara…" He mumbled. She pulled a face at the fake name. Sure she'd been the one to tell him it, but it didn't stop it being strange to hear. He shook his head to try and wake him up a bit. She'd been more frustrated with him, if she hadn't spotted the clock up on the wall. The time read 4:15. It was late as hell.

"Ah, sorry there. If you're tired you can take my bed if you want. I really can't be bothered leaving this couch." He smiled apologetically.

She'd complain but she wouldn't be surprised if it'd been the idea to give her the bed in the first place, it seemed like a thing to do would be to play the nice guy and give the girl the bed. She didn't see much of a difference either way, whether she was on the couch or whether he was. She'd be fine with anything as long as it wasn't the floor.

So without a word, she let him fall back asleep and headed into the bedroom. Erina had to admit she felt weird stealing his bed, it wasn't hers was the simple fact, and it was a guy's also. That only increased her uncomfortableness in going through with the act. But she swallowed her uneasy feelings and pulled back the covers and climbed on it. With a mix of tiredness and the fact it was the softest thing she'd slept on in memory, she was asleep within minutes.

* * *

><p>A bird chirping outside the black curtained window behind the bed was the first thing to alert her to the waking world. Blinking Erina slowly roused, the lights weren't on, but the lounge room which she could see through the archway in front of her was bright. The sun had risen it occurred to her. Gradually, the teenager lifted herself up, doing her best not to fall back asleep, she felt as if the soft mattress was trying to drag her back down and make her sink in its depths. She couldn't remember sleeping on something so soft before, it was almost bizarre. She flicked her long hair out of her face to see what she was doing.<p>

It was a pain sometimes, but she preferred it over short hair. She wasn't entirely sure why, it wasn't as if she had a mirror to admire it in, and it only ever got in her way, and it wasn't even waist length yet. The only good thing she could find in having long hair was that it could mask her somewhat; the longest strands could cover her body while she could use her fringe to cover her face. However, it wasn't long enough as of yet, the longest part of her fringe ended just below her eyebrow on the left side, and it was practically none existent on the right. It was a good idea she believed to try and grow it, but she was sure having hair in her eye all the time would just piss her off.

After fiddling with her fringe a bit while thinking, she tired of it and hopped out of bed. Yoshioka was out in the lounge room, nibbling on a roll of bread. In the tiny kitchen of his was a set of plastic bags, pointing to the fact that he'd gone shopping.

"What time is it?" The girl rubbed her drowsy eyes to free them of sleep.

Glancing over at her for a second, he answered with a mouthful of bread, "2 O'clock." Before he returned his sights to the TV in front of him.

"Afternoon? Jesus, how long was I out for?" She grumbled before sitting on the edge of the couch. He tossed a roll to her; she caught it but didn't make any sign to show that she intended to eat it.

"You looked comfortable, so I just let you sleep." The Turk explained. "You need rest. Can't expect you get much in that cell."

Erina sighed and rolled her eyes before taking a bite of the food he'd given her. "I get plenty of sleep, there's little to do in there after all. It's just not comfortable is all."

"Well you could do for some sleep in a proper bed. You sleep on the floor a lot don't you?"

"True." She replied as she chewed on the bread. She didn't eat it much, it was rare for her to be given it while in the cell, and it was almost always hard.

For a while they both turned silent, choosing to finish their food instead of talking to each other. When she was done, Erina was the first to speak.

"Hey, why haven't I seen you lately?"

Yoshioka swallowed the piece of bread in his mouth and put down the remainder of his roll. "I've had some time off work. It's god damn rare, so I just used it for rest. I only went back yesterday. Why you asking?"

"I'd been wondering is all. Because I haven't seen you in heaps long. I was thinking of getting your help to fix that angel doll. She's sorta broken and it's not as if I have a way to fix her."

"Why'd you care so much? You don't strike me as one to care for something so childish." The man finished his food, trying to stop a chuckle.

"It's not for me. There's a five year old in my cell you know? She really likes her. She's upset because she's falling apart." Erina explained. "Her wings are falling off, the stitching's gone all loose.

Yoshioka nodded, "'Kay then, suppose that makes sense. Don't you got anyone else that can fix her? My sister probably can, she has some sewing skills. She's not good with hand sewing I know. I'm not sure she'll do it anyway, she's not a big fan of you."

The girl raised an eyebrow, "Who else would I have, you're practically my only connection to the outside world."

"What about the guy who was looking after you before? Does he know anyone?"

"Well he's the one who stitched the angel wings on in the first place." She admitted. "But that's beside the point. I'm not going to go near him or Charlotte again. I don't want to see him, or her, or even that stupid little baby." She scowled.

"Baby?" He questioned before remembering, "Ah, you said there was one didn't you? What's the problem with him? It's not like a baby could have done you any harm from four years ago. They wouldn't even be born at that time would they?"

"She's," She emphasised the she, pointing out that he'd gotten the gender wrong, "named after her mother. She looks just like her, oh asides from her eyes. Those are like her dad's, AKA the guy I'm trying to stay away from. I got sick just looking at her, it's not like I enjoy the fact that it's my fault that she's minus a parent."

Yoshioka frowned, and instead of continuing the argument, picked up a plate from the coffee table and went into the kitchen. Erina sighed and laid back on the couch.

"It was an accident ShinRa found you again isn't it? Even if one of them is related to a member of the company, it's clear even he doesn't like them. They didn't want that to happen, I'll hazard a guess they even tried to stop it."

"That's true…" Erina mumbled dejectedly, as she turned onto her side.

"Then you can't blame them for what happened." He declared.

"That's true too." She agreed as she crawled into a fetal position. "But if they'd never met me, then Jess wouldn't be dead. Her daughter would have a mother, and I wouldn't have ruined Rhap's life. All I did was wander away from a crowd during school. They were passing through the town; they were curious what I was doing, so we started talking. I'm not sure why they asked me to go with them, and I'm not sure why I said yes. I'm not sure why I wanted to leave; all the other kids thought I was weird, the teachers too. But I didn't care for them though, I was just happy that I had nice parents, even though I knew they weren't actually my parents. I've destroyed them I bet. I know they'd always wanted a kid, but they were never able to conceive because she was infertile. I was a little bundle of joy that had answered all their prayers, so they'd absolutely adored me. But I left without a second thought, and I have absolutely no idea why-"

"Don't blame yourself." Yoshioka cut her off, his tone dead serious.

Erina's lifted up her head, her eyes boring into his. He could tell he'd upset her, made her angry undoubtedly, but he wanted to go on. She had no choice in the matter.

"If she was weak enough to kill herself, then that's not your fault. She's the one he took her own life away, it was her choice. You can't blame yourself for that, it's a shame; I won't deny that. But it's not your fault; it can never be your fault. Don't you see that?"

She glared daggers at him and put her head back down. "Idiot." She muttered.

"What are you getting at anyway, why do you think it has to be your fault? Clearly if she killed herself because you were gone, then you weren't even there to do anything."

"Everything's my fault." She spat. "I ruined a perfectly good couples dreams, and I destroyed what had been a perfectly normal group of people who all had had a future. But I took that future away from one of them and all the others have been permanently affected by that. Everyone would be much better off without me. I must be cursed."

Yoshioka groaned and stormed over to her. He grabbed her by the wrist so she couldn't cover her face and screamed furiously.

"What on earth is wrong with you?"

She smiled sadly, and tried to roll over some more to hide her expression. "Everything I guess. I bet you'll be hurt eventually. Everyone will sometime."

"Geez. Why do you think like that? I'm trying to help you, and I'm pretty sure that other group is. If they didn't want to help you then why did he bring you to a safe place when he found you passed out in the street, when no one else was going to? What do you want? Do you want to be punished? Then why do you keep escaping, what's the point in it if you don't think you deserve to be saved? What do you want!?"

Erina frowned and ripped her hand out of his grip. When he tried to take hold of her again she shook him off and stood up.

"Ara!"

She ignored him and started walking towards the door, without looking back.

"Ara! Answer me!"

She passed the couch and was half way to the front door.

"Ara, just tell me!"

She took hold of the doorknob and twisted.

"What do you want!?"

The door opened, she paused in the doorway, trying to not make him notice that her hand was shaking.

"That's a really good question."

She slammed the door behind her and ran down the hall as fast as her legs could take her, wiping furiously at the tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn't even know why she was crying.

* * *

><p>Erina walked around the area for a while, unsure where to go. She'd never hated the fact that she had nowhere to go more than now. She'd decided that she wanted to go up the plates after a certain point, but having never been down to the slums before she got a little bit lost trying to get to the centre. All she knew was that she wanted away from Rhapsody and Charlotte, and Yoshioka now too. She didn't want to even look at that duo again. And through she wasn't as disinclined to the idea of dealing with the Turk again she knew he was going to ask her a question that she had no answer for.<p>

She wanted out, out of ShinRa's grasp, out of Midgar, away from this bloody side of the continent so that no one would have to know her. She didn't want to hurt anyone, but she wanted help, but if she got help, she would only hurt them. It just went in an eternal loop; there was no point to try.

If she was just going to be an embodiment of bad luck there wasn't any point in bothering with anyone was there?

She shook the thought out of her head as she found a stairway leading to the plates. She sighed a sigh of relief; she'd spent an hour trying to find it. If Yoshioka had been trying to find her any longer and he would have succeeded. She was sure the same would work for Rhapsody. He must be looking for her, he would have been worried when he awoke and she wasn't there. It wasn't as if he would be surprised though, he must have been suspecting she would follow that course of action.

She went up the steps two at a time. They were wide so no one would fall off, and went alongside the highway and train tracks that connected the plates to the slums. There were many, possibly hundreds given the height they went up, but she didn't slow down, she wanted out so that was what she was getting, even if it put her closer to ShinRa.

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><p>Up on the plates, she found herself doing what she always did, wandering around aimlessly. Usually, she was content with this, but today she wasn't. She wanted somewhere she could go, being somewhere different for once even if only for a day, and even if she didn't enjoy it, reminded her of the lost time where she wasn't stuck in one place. She missed it she had to admit, to go wherever she wanted, without restraint. It was a pleasant feeling knowing she could, and knowing she'd just ripped herself away from that was stifling.<p>

She was relaxed when she was strolling about the plates, at least, she usually was. This time around she was constantly looking around for sight or sound of someone who might recognise her. She didn't want to be caught, by ShinRa, or Yoshioka, Or Rhapsody. And yet all at the same time she wanted it. She wanted somewhere to be even if it was hell for her, or just truly hell. She was being indecisive she supposed, she didn't understand herself sometimes.

She was being paranoid, each sound sent a look in its direction, but it wasn't ever anything for her to worry about or concern herself over. She took careful steps, avoiding being surrounded by too many people because she knew she wouldn't be able to take it, but keeping close to crowds so she couldn't be noticed. For once being small was a massive advantage to her, she could surround herself with people like an impenetrable fort. She did her best to cover her clothes with her hair; they were dirty and white, easy to spot. Perhaps from a distance her hair would look like part of her outfit.

She couldn't say how long she went on like this. Going crazy, her head ready to split. It became dizzying, she searched and searched, for a place to go, if someone was looking for her, she wasn't sure what mattered more. She clung to herself, fearing for anything to happen at all, but it wasn't like this could go on forever, everything came to an end.

Just before the pressure made her break, a voice called out to another. Erina heard it clearly, and she knew what it meant. Her eyes snapped up to the sound, seeing two men in white clothes, one near her and one some ways away. But the nearest had his eyes on her, not to mention his finger pointing in her direction. She recognised them as guards, and with no one else reacting to them, she knew they were here for her.

Without wasting a second she took off like a rocket, pushing aside the crowd to get away. Swiftly the guards took off in pursuit. She climbed up on top of seats and railings just to dodge the never ending sea of people. The men were bigger than her, but she was faster. She couldn't say who would win this desperate race.

She raced around corners and dodged under any object or person who stood in her way. She wasn't sure if she even cared anymore whether they caught her or not, she was going to go back to the cell eventually, there was no denying that. But something stopped her from stopping; something forced her to keep propelling forward like a mad beast.

Having to deal with the mental exhaustion she'd suffered from before, Erina now had physical exhaustion to go along with it. But even so, she couldn't stop herself. Her breath was laboured and her steps unsteady, but she continued onward, not letting herself slow down for a single moment.

After a time she wasn't sure of, she halted in her steps, her lungs burning for air which she gave them greedily. She looked around, and found that they were nowhere in sight. She wouldn't say she was in the clear yet, they might still be around. So next time she took off, she did so far slower, at a jog instead of her frenzied pace. It was ironic she thought, when she observed her surroundings, how far her escape had led her close to the ShinRa building. It was the very place she was avoiding by avoiding the men after her.

She circled around the area, looking for a hiding spot, but unsure if anywhere was going to work. The task however, took up more time than she'd intended to take, and the guards spotted her once again. Mimicking her actions from before, she took off before they could gain any ground on her, and she disappeared into the crowd once again. But knowing they were close, she kept her speed up, sending herself as fast as she could go. She couldn't see or hear them, but she trusted her instincts that told her they were nearby, and if she stopped they would get her.

About the time when her legs became so sore she knew she was about to drop, Erina passed by an alleyway and into an area familiar to her. She was near the back staircase of the ShinRa building. The one she always used to get in and out. She stared at it for a moment, a plan forming in her head.

She could hide on a lower floor, one where no one would recognise her. It was the best place, the guards would never look for her in the very place they were trying to take her back to. Without a second thought, she dashed straight for the door. She ran up the steps multiple at a time. She didn't count how many floors she went up, it was a fair few, but not enough that she'd run into the Science Department. She picked a door at random and entered the hall it led into. It was almost void except two men by the end. They were young, but not as young as she was. She supposed from their attire and their youth that she was on a military floor. Sure she couldn't expect to see any women, but at least everyone else, for the most part, would be young too. It made things easier for her to hide.

She followed a straight path before taking a turn; she looked around the edge to make sure the coast was clear before she rounded it. She heard a few people coming closer, so without really thinking about it, she looked up to the roof, curious if there was a possible escape point. She grinned when she saw a metal support plenty thick enough for her to stay on. Quickly she ran at the wall, trying to use her momentum to give her the lift up for her to reach the support, luckily for her, she managed to get high enough to grab onto the edge with her hands. Straining herself, she heaved herself up, and laid flat, hoping for no one to notice.

When the people whom she'd heard earlier walked by, not one of them noticed the little thirteen year old girl by their heads. She smiled to herself, happy for achieving a successful escape. And for quite a while, not one person spotted her.

Erina came close to falling asleep soon enough. She was still somewhat tired from going to sleep so late at night, and running like madman till breaking point never did anyone good. The cold metal was uncomfortable, but she was used to using the type of surface like a bed. She'd shut her eyes and her breathing had steadied, she coolness of the room felt like a soft wind to her flushed skin. She both heard the happenings around her and didn't at the same time, they felt as if they were a long way of, while in reality they were beneath her.

"How did you get up there?" A voice cut through. It was a guy, and he sounded young.

Curious, she lazily turned herself over to peep over the edge of the support. She felt somewhat embarrassed when she actually recognised them. It was one of the boys whom she'd met one of the last times she'd gotten out. From when some strange drunk had attacked her, and the brunette had saved her. It wasn't that one luckily for her, as she'd already built up a dislike of that person. It was the black haired boy who'd also been with him. She wasn't sure what to say to him, as she was so overly excited over his name sounding like angel, that she'd already forgotten what it actually was.

"Didn't expect anyone to spot me…" She mumbled, hiding her face with her hands, she wasn't sure if she was being clear enough to be understood.

But from his response it seemed like he'd heard. He half smiled. "You're not too hard to spot. It's just a strange place, how did you get up there anyway?" He reiterated his earlier question

Erina lifted her head up so that she wasn't covering her mouth, and her answer would be easier to hear. "I ran at the wall and grabbed it. Pulled myself up and fell asleep. Simple." She pointed to the wall in question.

He eyed it, possibly wondering how she found it so easy a task considering her size. She would have needed a lot of momentum. She expected him to ask something more on the subject, so she was surprised when he asked instead. "What are you doing here anyway? You don't actually have any connection to ShinRa do you?"

She chewed the inside of her cheek. Yes, she had a simple answer, but at the same time it was a very difficult one. Who was to say she would be believed? She didn't know much about the person in front of her, would he be able to believe in human experimentation? So she decided for now that it was best to mask the truth with a little lie.

Erina lifted herself up and hopped off the beam, landing cat like on the ground. There was a little pain in her legs, but not enough that she couldn't stand. "I'm hiding. Not like anyone would expect to find me here." That was of course the truth, but it was hopefully sufficient to allow her to avoid speaking of her and ShinRa's actually relationship.

"True." He made a face. "But wouldn't you get into more trouble hiding here of all places? I'm pretty sure ShinRa is serious about their security."

"Hmm." She hummed. "Probably, but it'll probably all work out in the end." She shrugged.

"Probably…" He sighed at her carefree attitude towards the warning.

Erina looked about for a moment, she thought since she'd already been discovered that it was best if she found a new hiding spot. But in view she saw nothing else that'd work. The person she as talking to didn't make any move to say he was going to leave. She assumed he was curious what on earth had led her here.

She didn't feel like giving him the truth or an answer at all, so she got off the subject of why she was here and asked. "Hey, what's your name?"

He seemed a little bit surprised. "Haven't I already said it?" The last time they'd met was a while ago, but she certainly had picked up his name then, and it shouldn't have been long enough for her to forget it so easily. She didn't seem that dumb.

"I know. But your name was so similar to angel and all…so I kinda forgot it…" She admitted whilst trying to not look embarrassed, for that was how she felt. It was stupid and made little sense.

The boy didn't seem to know how to react; he gave her an odd look then smiled. "It's Angeal. Mind telling me yours?"

She was initially going to do a repeat of when he'd last asked her that, the last time they'd met. But she decided to give an answer, even if it wasn't true.

"Ara." She couldn't put a reason to it, but she just didn't want say her name. Ara didn't sound too fake; he'd believe it.

"At least I got an answer this time." He grinned. "It's better than nothing."

'Even if it's a lie.' She thought to herself with a sigh. "I should probably get going…I know I shouldn't be here… might cause some trouble. " Erina stuttered, growing uncomfortable standing in a random hall in the ShinRa building, with god knows who could be watching.

"I suppose." Angeal replied. "It's safest isn't it?"

She nodded and without saying anymore dashed down the hall. She'd return to the staircase and stay there for as long as possible.

She'd been in a mood for the whole day, but she felt better now. She couldn't form a legitimate reason for it, but she felt comfortable talking to Angeal. Though in the end, she left this up to his name and that she'd been comparing him to the brunette boy. He at least wasn't going out of his way to annoy her when that wasn't even his character.

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><p><strong>There are some little things done in this chapter that are going to become Habits of hers, it's the most trivial parts of the chapter, but still I decided she needed to start the habit some time. <strong>

**Hope you enjoyed. Thanks to those in the past who have reviewed. More reviews in the future will make me very happy and I'll appreciate them very much because this is my favourite story on here and its also my least popular to the point its just depressing. It doesn't even have a thousand hits. It's a pathetic amount compared to my most popular which has about 28x more views. I'm not kidding. I'm not in a good state at the moment, so seeing a review for my little baby will lift up my spirits so very much. **

**Jya ne,**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


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